


Stand Together

by doctormissy



Series: The Spectre of Connection [1]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Kingsman (Movies), London Spy, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alex Turner Lives, Alex is 009, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety Attacks, Background Relationships, Canon-Typical Violence, Christmas, Christmas at the Holmeses, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Mary is 001, Mild Sexual Content, Mission Fic, POV Alternating, Post V-Day, Post-SPECTRE, Q is a Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-08-11 01:22:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 58,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7870024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctormissy/pseuds/doctormissy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How can one phone call change everything Kingsman and MI6 know about Richmond Valentine and V-Day?</p><p>Nothing is over yet.<br/> </p><p>  <span class="small">The ships this thing actually talks about are 00Q and Hartwin, the rest are minor/mentioned. </span></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is a translation. Of my work. I decided to write it in Czech first, because everything about this story and plot was so complicated I needed to write it down fast and then translate and improve it. I like to think it's easier that way, even if it's really not.
> 
> *apologies if there are any grammatical errors, all mine*
> 
> There are only 00Q and the Holmes family at the beginning, the other ships and fandoms appear since chapter 5.
> 
> Check out this [aesthetic](http://wiilgrahams.tumblr.com/post/159828740075/stand-together-read-on-ao3-how-can-one-phone) I made for the fic :)

A helicopter landed in a lonely hangar in the midst of the cold, snow-covered Caucasus Mountains, unseen and non-targeted by a single human soul. It touched down on one of the unoccupied places inside the vast cave filled with empty, headless bodies of soldiers in white. The propellers stirred up the frowsty, stale air smelling of decaying flesh and cut through the dead silence. The engine quit roaring and slowly decelerated to zero. 

It was months after the unfortunate failure of Valentine’s plan.

The doors opened from both sides and allowed two men dressed in expensive, dark coats and suits typical for mafia glitterati from the entire world to get off. They cautiously looked around and stepped forward. They carried their firearms within arm’s reach for the entire time. 

They needed to get upstairs to Valentine’s little office. Their magnificent project must not fail this time. 

Valentine may be dead, but he had been only one chess piece on the convoluted draughtboard of SPECTRE. His legacy had not died. They still could succeed in the culling of the human population—a pestilence endangering planet Earth—according to his design. 

And they will. It required nothing more than recalibrating the biometric security system the operational table used and re-launching the SIM-card-emitted signal. Nothing more than that.

The men reached the main hall, carefully avoiding the mess on the ground consisting of immense numbers of rotting bodies, dried blood and glass shatters. 

They stopped at Richmond Valentine’s impaled corpse. One of them crouched down and pulled the black ring with octopus emblem off the man’s finger. He pocketed it. 

 

Valentine had been one of the most loyal and most valued members of SPECTRE, the terrorist organisation operating all over the world in utmost secrecy. There had been a lot to celebrate when the billionaire joined their ranks at last, despite all of his faults as blood intolerance and inability to take a gun in his hand. They had plenty of men who could pull the trigger, but not so many genius minds with grand plans and brilliant thoughts. 

The other members might have even pitied and mourned his death, weren’t they coldblooded killers and criminals now working for Pietro Alberici, an Italian who was in charge of the organisation since Blofeld was given a life imprisonment.

Alberici was, in fact, even crueller and more heartless than the German megalomaniac. That different kind of authority suited most of the members just as well. His reign was harsher, yet all trades, transactions, espionages, or assassinations passed off with far better efficiency and success rate. 

 

The man stood up. They continued on their way upstairs, apace, not uttering a single word. Having arrived in the initially glassed-in room, they noticed the table was slightly damaged but still functional. It will be the slightest of problems problem to repair the damage and re-programme it, and make it work for them again.

Nothing stood in SPECTRE’s way to purify the Earth anymore, as long as at least a half of the previous owners of the SIM cards still had theirs.

The older and smaller of the two men crossed the room. He propped himself against the table’s edges and said, with a thick Hungarian accent and a complacent, foxy smirk on his face, “This is going to be a spectacular Christmas indeed.” 


	2. One

James has been watching Q intently tamper with a laptop motherboard for the past two hours. It could never get boring to lounge on the sofa and watch the man work. James could not help but beam every time he glanced at him and saw the charming concentration in the corner of his mouth and his eyes.

Q had placed the sofa in the lab after many long, sleepless nights spent in the office when neither he nor Moneypenny could make him go home. They were both grateful he had done it. 

Q was looking at the composite circuitry through a magnifying glass. His mouth was partly open, and the tip of his tongue peeped out of it. He was holding a pair of tweezers and a small soldering iron in his slender fingers. From time to time, he mumbled something inaudible to Bond or put the tools aside so he could move the board. 

The lab was immersed in absolute silence; only their breath, the clattering of Q’s tools, and a perpetual hum of central heating interfered with it. That was exactly what suited Q the most: working in silence, undisturbed by any unwelcome interference. 

He had got accustomed to the Double-Oh’s presence months ago. He used to annoy Q at first, even drive him crazy with his presumptuous behaviour. But those times were long gone. As long as the agent kept his mouth shut and did not distract him with anything (well, he was not very good at following that condition, but Q couldn’t do much about it; it was what one got for living with that impudent spy in one flat), he could do whatever he wanted. Within reason. 

Q looked up. James leant forward for a while, and then decided to lie on his back. He was a trained spy for Queen and Country, not a domestic cat, therefore he couldn’t sit still for long, and Q couldn’t blame him. He thought he would need a Rubik’s cube or at least a mobile full of games for entertainment. 

Should he put the soldering iron and magnifier aside for a while and fetch the agent some toys? He was exhausted and needed a break, too. His eyes, hands, and buttocks hurt from hours of sitting on an uncomfortable stool, and it was late, anyway. 

Q turned the hand tool off as intended. He carefully placed it on a mat and moved the handle with the magnifier to the left. He put the motherboard inside a drawer, where broken equipment belonged. He pulled his glasses up in his hair. 

Q was rubbing his eyes wearily—when a sudden ping of a notification startled him. He jolted. The sound was loud. Besides, he did not expect to get a message that late at night. 

The boffin directed his gaze at the screen of his laptop. He broke out in a cold sweat. Q couldn’t believe his eyes: the email was from his parents. 

They had decided to contact him after four years of seclusion, out of the blue?

He hesitated with opening the email—was it wise to get in touch with his family again, after everything that happened?

Still unsure of his actions, Q eventually clicked on the link and started to read. His eyes lapped up the words. James, who still lay on the couch, turned his head to his partner. He saw concern in his eyes. With a hint of worry in the tone of his voice, he asked, “Q, what’s going on?”

“James, fancy those two people that are registered as my parents in my birth certificate have just sent me an invitation for a Christmas gathering,” Q answered soberly yet with a trace of scepticism. He couldn’t believe it could be true, and they really could be honest with him. It was off. There _had_ to be a catch. “They want me to spend the holidays in their house. With them. Out of nothing. And they’re also saying I can bring someone with me.” 

Q snorted. How could they know? 

He looked up from the screen and looked at Bond from behind the frame of his spectacles. His eyes suggested who the certain someone might be had he accepted the invitation—which was absolutely out of question. 

“I have no clue why now of all times,” he added, whispering.

James rolled on his side so he could see Q fully and didn’t have to twist his neck uncomfortably. He supported his head on one elbow. His lips spread in a thin, understanding smile. 

“Well, that’s good news; I've always wanted to meet The Parents. When do we leave?” James asked wittily, despite realising Q would turn the offer down as always.

“We’re not, James. We’re not,” replied Q. He saw James raise his eyebrow in question. “Because I simply cannot accept it. They didn’t care about me. I didn’t hear a word from them for years—the only person I’ve come in contact with since I started working for MI6 was my eldest brother, and only because he is in charge of everything here—but now, ten months after V-Day, they have suddenly remembered they have a third son and took pity on me? They want to make things right and fix the old wrongs only now when they realised they could have lost me? James, they don’t even have a clue where I work, for God’s sake!”

He couldn’t hold it back any longer. His nerves were pretty shot, and reading the email was the final step to blow. He had needed to let off steam for some time. How long has he been sitting there, fiddling with components, again? 

“But Q—”

“I’m not going to my parents for Christmas, James. What if a national alert occurs, or we are attacked by deadly Christmas trees and plastic Santas with trumpets, and I am lazing around somewhere in the country, stuffing myself with sweets, instead of maintaining national security here at Q-Branch? And what about William and Kate? Besides, I hate Christmas.”

All three brothers had that in common.

“Q-Branch and our cats can survive few days without you, Andrew,” James noted. “I’ll even return that Aston you’d given me if we go. After we come back,” he pleaded, and put on his best beguiling face. He had even used Q’s real name instead of the usual moniker. That meant something.

Bond had tried to get his partner on a holiday somewhat vehemently for few months, though never succeeded. It did not matter where they would go—just out of the lone laboratory. This was an excellent opportunity to implement that plan—and another, different plan of his Q had no idea about.

“And since when do you hate Christmas?” 

James got up from the sofa and strode toward Q’s desk. He walked round it. He leant to hug Q from behind, putting his hands on Q’s chest. He snuggled up to him and pressed a light kiss under his ear. 

Q sighed. He still hadn’t relaxed his hands stretched on the desk, and James could feel the tautness in his muscles through the thick wool of his ugly, colourful jumper. It told him Q had not ceased to be angry and unwilling to change his mind and stance toward his family. 

However, it was 21st December only. He had plenty of time to convince him of the contrary yet.

“I have always hated Christmas,” Q answered as though it had been obvious.

“Please, at least consider it. You said it yourself: you haven’t seen any of these people in four years,” James grunted. He used every possible argument he could dig out of his mind. 

He had actually spoken to Q’s mother on the phone once and arranged the invitation, of which Q must never know.

He tried to convince him to bear it in mind with more soft kisses along his neck and jaw line, yet Q did nothing but emit grumbly noises and frown. James did not give up, though.

Very slowly, he somehow moved to sit on Q’s lap. He didn’t stop rewarding his partner with small, loving kisses until he got a proper view of that beautiful mouth of his. His gaze lingered on his lower lip for a moment, and then he pulled in for a fervid, open-mouthed snog. Q let him and requited the kiss with the same ardour. Well, how could he say no to James Bond and deny him the pleasure?

James slid one hand in Q’s curly hair—oh, how much he loved his dark, forever undisciplined hair—and the other found the nape of his neck. Q stopped clutching at the desk and caught James by his waist. James sucked on Q’s lower lip, biting it lightly and lovingly; Q leant in him more and more. He did not want to let go of him, never. Q slipped his tongue inside James’ mouth and let his feelings and desire lead the game.

“Promise me you’ll at least consider it,” Bond said against Q’s lips when he pulled away for air. He was panting a little, and so was Q. He gave the boffin one last smack and pulled away further, smiling. 

If it were up to him, they would have sat there for eternity and never ever parted. There was just something about Q that utterly fascinated him, magnetised him as never before, and made him feel like a love-drunk teenager that couldn’t have enough of his first real love. He had actually ached for home and their bed every time he was gone for longer than two or three weeks. 

He had never been happier and more content with life as he was now—but he had also never been as scared. 

“Alright, alright, but only because you’re such a good kisser. However, I promise nothing. Why should we cancel the yearly tradition of Christmas-market shopping all over London anyway, hmm?” 

Q looked James in the eye. His gaze expressed what aversion he had held for the travel to his childhood home. James wanted to say it won’t be that much of a catastrophe and he would like it in the end… in the very end; yet he said nothing and let Q stroke his back lovingly and tiredly with one hand.

Q gave him an assuring but half-hearted smile. 

“You said you hated Christmas,” James answered briskly.

“That is true.”

“Then why would you—never mind. You are so goddamn obstinate to see it might end up quite differently than you think, Q. It can’t be that horrible.” 

Bond looked at his watch. 1:31 AM, it glared. His eyelids were getting heavy as he lounged on the sofa in the calm, dark room. They both needed to get some sleep, Q more than he. 

“Anyway, we should be heading home now. You need to sleep properly, Q, I can’t look at those bags under your eyes anymore.” Deep care wound in James’ voice. 

Q had learnt James Bond wasn’t quite the person he considered him for in many regards. He could care. He could strip the spy mask off. He could be James and not 007 when he was with him. He could relax and enjoy domestic atmosphere and doing nothing at all. He could love. 

Q opened his mouth to utter a response but a yawn surprised him, so he just nodded. Then, when the yawn was over, he affirmed, matter-of-factly, “Alright, but doing that would mean you’d have to get off me first.”

He gave James another thin, forced smile and blinked several times. He patted James’ thigh. 

The agent let out a wannabe-disgruntled murmur, pecked Q’s lips one more time, and removed Q’s hands from his own body so he could get up in the first place. 

The cogwheels of Q’s brain turned and twisted as he calculated. There was maybe a five—no, ten per cent likelihood of considering Mother’s offer. He wouldn’t let James hope for more. 

He did not think she would own an email account, let alone do such foolish things as that. 

By getting on his feet, James allowed Q to follow suit. He turned the laptop off, closed it, and packed it in his messenger bag with a few other trinkets. He reached for his coat, scarf, and cap and put it on. He was too warm in the lab, but he didn’t care. The damp corridors won’t be as welcoming. 

James and he walked to the lift. Q switched off the lights, and they boarded the lift, heading upstairs. They have finally left the laboratory, only to return tomorrow. 

He and James were the last people in the entire premises. None of the Quartermaster’s minions was at work for that long (for which James was grateful). 

They got on the motorboat, and James rode them to the place where he had parked the grey Aston Martin (which James promised on returning, but there was no chance he would actually do it). They exchanged the discomfort of the windy boat for the comfort of a heated car, and headed for Notting Hill.

 

When Q lay in the bed, one reheated Asian noodles, a shower, and more snogging later, dressed in his pyjamas and shrouded in darkness that was oh so good for thinking, subconsciously increased the chance of accepting the invitation by a startling forty per cent. 

That meant a lot when it came to Q and personal matters, although it might not seem so.

 

Three days later, curiously enough, Q found himself standing in front of a sturdy, brown door to a red family house decorated with a Christmas garland. He was holding hands with James. He stretched the free arm forward, ready to knock. He hesitated. He was not very keen on actually doing so. 

It had cost James quite the amount of wheedling, sweet-talking, promises, little gifts, and passionate lovemaking to force Q to go to his parents’ Christmas party. Nevertheless, there they were.

James squeezed Q’s hand, supporting and encouraging. That simple gesture gave his partner enough resolution to bring himself to grip the doorknocker and bang on the wood at last. 

Even though there was a doorbell next to the door, his parents appreciated the good, old-fashioned knocker more. Mother always said the bell startled her. Q knew it was only a silly excuse. 

The alarming _is this a mistake?_ crossed Q’s mind for the gazillionth time. Perhaps it was, but they were beyond the option of return now. He could already hear silent speaking, shuffling noises, and clicking of his mother’s heels that suggested she was walking to the door to open it. He recognised the pace and length of her steps immediately. 

Q still owned a key, of course, but his inner voice whispered it would be more polite and less invading to do it this way. He listened to it; his instincts were always right. 

Q faced James. He gave him a short nod. _Everything’s going to be fine._

The door slowly opened to the inside. A small, well-rounded woman with grey hair pulled up in a chignon, wearing a red cardigan, peeped out. Q’s mother. 

When she laid eyes on her youngest son, she pulled up short and brightened up at the same time. Her face twisted with the mixed feelings. After a moment of strange tension, she, however, gave him a slender smile and crossed the threshold. She hugged her son tight, and said, “So you have decided to show up at last, Andrew Sherrinford Holmes!” 

Q, despite everything, hugged her back and buried his head in her shoulder. That woman was his mother after all. He closed his eyes and inhaled the familiar scent of her perfume, fabric softener, and smoke from the fireplace. The smell of home that brought all unwanted memories back. Neither of them said a word.

James chuckled at the mention of Q’s middle name—Sherrinford—and Q rolled his eyes on him when he opened them a second later. He pulled away from Mother, and noticed Father’s arrival. The old man had come downstairs when he heard who has joined them for Christmas after all.

Mr Holmes’ belly was bigger and hair greyer than the last time he had seen him. He still wore the same clothes as ever, though: a thick, beige cardigan with a huge collar and brown checked trousers. (James suddenly realised which way the wind was blowing.) He too gave Q a quick hug. They exchanged a few polite words. 

No one mentioned the fact they were upset with him for cutting the little that still remained between them and reminded them they were a family for good, isolating himself, and not sending even a stupid message saying hello. No one mentioned the fact he was equally upset with them for the very same reason.

James introduced himself to Q’s parents with his usual ‘Bond, James Bond’ and the information he was Q’s partner, which both of them, of course, knew. He shook hands with Mrs Holmes; her handshake was surprisingly firm. 

She smiled. James’ craggy looks, forever vigilant and sharp gaze in his blue eyes, and face telling everyone he had experienced a lot and none of it was pleasant did not disconcert her whatsoever. 

Well, at least he did not wear the customary suit but a bit more casual jacket and slacks. 

Q was already inside, welcomed—not as enthusiastically—by his oldest brother. When Bond stepped in and caught the glimpse of the tall man with an unctuous smile, he sat up. Mycroft Holmes, the head of SIS, gave him a look that yelled: _If something happens to my brother, I will kill you myself, 007, and it will be very unpleasant._

The man knew very well who Bond was, for they had met two or three times at the old Six Headquarters. 

James requited the look with one no less sharp yet shook his hand as well. However, he was not glad to see him. That man was a pain in the arse of the whole MI6, and he did not want to get in his way.

He had known Mycroft was attending the party, of course, but he had sort of forgotten about it. 

Mr Holmes invited both his son and James inside. He told them there was no need to take their shoes off and showed them where to hang the coats. As they did so, he led them through the whole ground floor to living room—the heart of all action in the house. 

Bond scanned the surroundings for possible exits, weapons, and threats on their way to the room. He couldn't turn his spy reflexes off completely, even though the building he happened to be inside of was only his partner’s childhood home. One never knew when someone might attack a house inhabited by people like those who were currently inside. Nevertheless, all he saw were kitschy Christmas decorations, tidy and neat space, and lots of kitschier objects and books all over the place. 

Mycroft retired to another room on the other side of the house. He sat on a sofa next to a smaller and greying yet handsome man approximately Mycroft’s age, and the other man shifted to him close enough for Bond to assess they were in a relationship. 

Oh, what doesn’t one learn on a Christmas party. He would never guess him for someone capable of dating somebody, let alone a man. 

James held Q’s hand in his for the entire time. They passed many closed doors on the way to the living room, all embellished with different kinds of colourful decorations. The biggest, most colourful, and most outstanding of them all was an unmissable fir that stood in the midst of the living room. Tinsels, baubles, stars, sweets, and many more decorations hung on it, and a bright, silver star shone at the top.

The entire house pleasantly smelled of oranges and biscuits. 

In one armchair right opposite the door sat a tall, pale man wearing a black suit. He looked distinctly alike Q: dark, curly, seemingly unkempt hair, thin physique, sharp face with striking features. Sherlock Holmes, the genius consulting detective, the Quartermaster’s second brother. 

A comparatively young, outstandingly pretty, and also dark-haired woman rested on the man’s lap innocently. Her head rested on his left shoulder, and her long hair covered a half of his chest. He was holding her by the waist with one hand. She was wearing black skinny jeans, wine satin blouse, and an immoderate layer of make-up. Rich, inscrutable, sexual goddess, James deduced by simply looking at her. How did someone like her end up with Mr Holmes?

The couple of them seemed to be indifferent to everything, every speck of dust floating in the air, and perhaps even a bit browned off with being forced to spend the holidays in there, just as Q. Sherlock’s eyes roved round the room as if he were looking for something outside of this world. He gave a special notice to the bookcase but looked straight through it. 

He wouldn’t even bother to greet Q and James hadn’t Q let go of James’ hand, stepped in front on his brother, and said, “Hello again, Sherlock. I am pleased to meet you once again after all that time.” He had the attention of both of them now. “This is James Bond, my partner. James, my brother Sherlock.”

James shook hands with him too, and said the required polite words. Q shifted his gaze at the woman and raised a questioning eyebrow at her. He did not know her; in fact, he had no idea Sherlock was dating someone. 

“I think we haven’t had the pleasure of meeting yet. My name’s Andrew Holmes.”

The brunette got up from Sherlock’s lap and smiled at Q, seductively ingratiating. She said, “Irene Holmes. The pleasure is all mine.”

That, hearing her surname, honestly shocked Q. Not only Sherlock hadn’t bothered to tell him he had finally had a girlfriend, but he had also forgotten to say something about a wedding, let alone invite him. _Sherlock has a wife?_

Moreover, a wife at whom he didn’t have to look twice to know she was such persona as his James—her life was full of wealth, blackmail, affairs, secrets, and sex. Judging by her clothes, make-up, possessive and wannabe sexy looks, manicure, posture, voice, expression, everything. He knew her for a few seconds, yet he figured that much out already. 

All the brothers were jolly good at reading and assessing people. It ran in the family. So did the taste in partners, apparently.

Sherlock sat down again. He nodded at Q and looked him up and down; it was rather disturbing. Mechanical, he said, “Good to see you too, brother. I see that new job of yours have changed you.” 

Fortunately, he refrained from further details he had surely detected during the two-second inspection. He had outwardly changed too, because the last time they had seen each other he would say everything aloud. He had had no boundaries when it regarded privacy, secrecy, and personal matters one wished to keep under wraps. 

“I hope, for everyone's sake, this James Bond isn’t as boring and stupid as the previous bloke.” 

He analysed James properly as he did with Q a while ago, and that judging look made James feel unpleasant, as if skinned. How much did he know by now? It worried him. He was a spy after all—the occupation required not revealing anything personal and incriminating, remaining unreadable, and keeping secrets, after all.

_Norman wasn’t boring and not to mention stupid,_ Q wanted to add, but then he concluded that arguing with Sherlock hadn’t got a point, and refrained from saying such note. It was for the best not to get in anyone’s face. 

James ceased to be concerned with the odd couple in the armchair. He turned to inspect the other side of the big room. He intended to meet the other visitors’ acquaintance—when suddenly his blood ran cold. By the wall stood a sofa. A coffee table was in front of it, surrounded by more armchairs. Before those was placed a TV. Cupboards lined the sidewalls, and on the left was a door to the kitchen. 

On the sofa, he sighted a blonde woman with semi-short hair, a little girl seated on her lap, and a man sitting by her side—her husband. He had never thought he would see that woman again in his life. How terribly wrong he had been.

He would never expect that woman to get married just as Q would never expect it with Sherlock. Yet, her husband and she just sat there at the table, paying attention to their daughter who couldn’t be older than two years, smiling at her, talking to her, not minding the world round them, and looking like an ordinary couple. But James knew all too well who that woman was. 

He started walking toward the kitchen promptly. His steps were long and loud, provoking the trio to look up at him. Everyone was looking at them, in fact. Sherlock, Irene, the Holmeses. 

Mary’s eyes and face froze with shock, and her expression became solemn all of a sudden, the smile as if never existed. She instinctively pressed the baby girl closer to her body. Her husband’s gaze flitted between her, James, Q, and everyone else. He did not know what to think.

Mycroft and his boyfriend decided not to join the collective and stay in their little nest on a couch. 

“007,” Mary said dryly, with a cold voice full of unpleasant memories, which she thought forgotten.

“001.”


	3. Flashback Chapter!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little flashback before we get back to the story. In other words, how Mary knows Bond, and all about the 001 title!

#### 1995

Five new-blood recruits from all over the world assembled in underground premises of one of the most secret, restricted SIS buildings in Britain. They were the most promising candidates with the greatest potential to become intelligence agents and perhaps even Double-Ohs—four men, and amongst them one lone woman.

James Bond from the Navy, a Russian agent named Yuri Kruglov, Thomas Martinez, a son of a Portuguese ex-serviceman, Zaid Momani, a Jordanian martial arts master, and Rosamund Rattigan, who has already absolved CIA training in the US.

They shuffled around on the spot nervously, deliberately avoiding any conversation or association. The protocols actually forbade them so; though, they were not very keen on engaging in small talk, anyway. Moreover, there was a striking possibility that not all five of them will have lived to see the end of the training and promotion to field agent status. They, of course, kept that in mind for all the time, but it was a rather oppressing thought, and none of the youths wished it were they who will meet such fate. 

Silence and tension slowly inflated the room. For how long are they going to have to wait yet?

The room was very bright and lined with white fluorescent lamps that gave it a displeasing shade. The recruits had to narrow their eyes. They could see their reflections in a large mirror covering the entire wall in front of them—it was a one-way mirror, doubtlessly. The room was otherwise empty but it, a door, and two cupboards at the other, far side. No one really wanted to give the inside of those a thought.

 

At last, a creak of a door being opened broke the nerve-racking silence. The pentad directed their gazes at the thin gap, which gradually grew thicker and, soon enough, allowed a rather short woman dressed in a trouser suit and clicking court shoes to step inside. Her hair was short and brown, with stray grey strands on the sides. Her sharply cold eyes pierced through their thin forms. 

They recognised her at once: M, the Head of MI6. 

“Welcome to Secret Intelligence Service,” she said and considered them quickly. It was the first time they had met her face-to-face. “Follow me, please.”

M crossed the room. The recruits followed her; Kruglov spearheaded the line, Rattigan closed it. She came to a stop at one of the old, wooden cupboards. The fivefold impatiently waited to see what she was going to do, and if there was something interesting inside or it was just some kind of a test.

She merely pulled one of the handles, and an automatic mechanism moved the seemingly heavy piece of furniture to the side. The action revealed an entrance to a long corridor, which led a few metres straight and then turned both left and right; it was hidden right behind the cupboard. The lights switched on, self-acting. 

They carefully peered inside as if it were hiding some sort of danger inside. Who knew what could be inside a secret passage in a secret basement? Although, they have probably watched too many spy films, because in reality, M continued on her way and prompted the curious youngsters to come after her.

The group turned left on the fork and changed the direction of their way several times before they arrived at a door, through which they got to a vast room holding a shooting range, exercise machines, and lots of other gym equipment. It was a very modern gymnasium, given the era. 

M led them to the centre of the gym and ordered them to line up and stand at attention. 

“Agents, your training has begun. We are aware that you already have experience with weapons, fieldwork, or even intelligence agency practices, but know that our training is considerably distinct from what you might expect. Do not assume all of you will pass and become agents; on the contrary, that has never happened before, you would be the first. I wish you all good luck nonetheless.” She nodded and her lips stretched in something of a thin and short smile. 

M said nothing more, turned round, and left the gym through the same door. Before it had closed fully, an elderly yet brawny man in a black tracksuit with a clipboard in his hands walked in. Training has begun indeed.

 

* * *

 

Everyone except Martinez, who had failed the general knowledge test, passed to the final part of their training at SIS. They became approved field agents and have already gone on a few minor missions, but until they carry out that one task essential for becoming a Double-Oh, they are nothing more than that. They will not get a licence to kill. They will not get assignments other than observation, infiltration, or gaining information.

That was not enough for the four of them. The Double-Oh Programme was what they had assigned for. Thus, they got their first files marked classified, and headed for their first missions with top priority and difficulty level. It was to test their abilities, responsibility, competence, and allegiance to the Country they must not have broken even in torture. It was hard, but so had to be they if they wished to succeed. 

Bond was in New York City, Kruglov in Waddan, Libya, Momani in Copenhagen, and Rattigan in Dhaka. Their targets were no one less than terrorists, traffickers, and enemy spies. Accomplishing such exacting tasks and killing those who the governments needed dead was the only way of proving their worthiness for the position of a Double-Oh agent; the spot brought immense responsibility with it and required absolute mental balance not everyone had.

 

They had become friends in time, as possible as friendship between spies was. They had gone out for a pint, a lunch, or a jog in the park. Sometimes, they had simply hung out as an ordinary bunch of friends. Other times, they would have brought people from other Branches, like R&D or Personal, along. 

The senior, high-ranking members of staff—Major Boothroyd or the Double-Ohs—weren’t exactly fond of them, but that was not their concern. It was just how it was. If they were lucky enough, they will have become one of them soon, and everything will have changed.

 

* * *

 

Only three of them had managed to make it out alive and get a promotion to the Double-Oh status. 

Rattigan, as the only woman, had proved to be the most skilful and fruitful agent of them all. In fact, she was the most skilled operative of all MI6 personnel in all history of the Service. M had dusted down the 001 codename after decades. With the title had come a new and different identity, and Rosamund Rattigan ‘had died in car accident’. Since then, she has been referred to as Mary Morstan only.

Everyone in MI6 valued her dearly, and she was the most respected, honoured, and admired member of the secret service right after M. No one ever questioned the fact she looked like a 23-year-old, conceited blonde at first sight—it was actually a great benefit in certain situations. They did not even flinch. They knew she was deadly. It was highly inadvisable to underestimate her, which was what her enemies did every time. That was the moment she struck. 

That look was a perfect cover: she could pretend to be literally anyone. It was always plausible. She was the most reliable and unimpeachable person of all agents. She deserved the 001 codename by every right.

 

Another one of their little group who had succeeded in killing the necessary two people was the Russian, four months after he gained the position of an MI6 operative. That was an unusually good result as well.

M thought him perfect for the 006 position, on which he replaced an agent who had died two years ago. He asked her to delete any records and traces of Yuri Kruglov, just as his colleague, given his past. 

The report of the man’s death said ‘deceased in avalanche in the Caucasus Mountains.’ It was only a small piece buried somewhere among the many many files in the archive, and perhaps Russian newspapers might have mentioned something, but otherwise no one had noticed. He as if never existed. 

The new file of a Double-Oh agent read Alec Trevelyan, black on white, in the name column. 

 

The last man who had been successful was James Bond. He had kept his position of a special agent for the longest, a little over five months, due to light carelessness, missing reports, frequent affairs with men and women, and inability to obey orders and do things properly. He was not hundred per cent effective, yet he fulfilled all tasks precisely and hardly ever failed, although one or two buildings might have unnecessarily exploded. 

M wasn’t particularly happy to do so, but she had given him the number 007 after he had killed an enemy double agent in Norway. 007 was a precise, intelligent, guileful, and cold-hearted agent—and that was exactly who Bond was. 

He, as the only one, retained his identity and name. Unlike the rest, he wore it proudly and wanted the enemies to know whose face was the last thing they saw and whose name was the last thing they heard before they kicked the bucket. He did not particularly care using his real name was reckless.

 

 

#### 2011

Thanks to perfectly exact instructions from the old Quartermaster, 001 and 007 localised 005 at last, in a tumbledown house standing on the outskirts of a small town in the middle of nowhere in Bulgaria. They were right on time: they only had five minutes left before detonators in a huge pile of explosives placed under the main square go off and wipe the town off the face of the earth. 

The Double-Ohs’ task was to get the agent out alive _and_ deactivate the bombs, which, luckily, consisted in stopping the countdown only. The switch was remote-controlled, and it occurred inside the very same building. It was where the abductors resided and held 005.

Bond strode to the building’s door. There was no time to lose, and they were under pressure, therefore he omitted all caution and usual procedures and did not check the area for landmines the terrorists might have placed under the ground. 

Had they had more time, 001 would have told him off for reckless actions. Sometimes, she still wondered if Bond really was a good 007. With his attitude, he would be more apt for the position of 0011. 

The agent came trotting backwards to Bond and incessantly looked round her with her gun pointed in front of her, finger tight on the trigger. Her breath was steady notwithstanding. 

There was nothing other than MI6’s black SUV and a brown Land Rover belonging to the abductors—who had covered most of the traces leading to them but left a car out in the open. Not very professional, it would seem.

Bond tried to open the door by pulling the handle, unsuccessfully. Of course it was locked. It could not be that simple. He took a few steps backwards, took a run-up, and kicked the wooden door open. It fell on the floor with a loud slam and raised a cloud of dust. Bond did not care about the consequences of such movement; the terrorists probably registered their presence already. 

He stepped inside, his Walther PPK/S held in both hands, safety off, ready to shoot whoever took their colleague dead. The inside of the house was in darkness; the only light came from gaps between planks covering the windows closed. Bond found the light switch, but alas, the power was down. 

It was one of those shady, dark buildings kidnappers always chose to detain hostages. It appeared fragile and broken, as if the ceiling should crash onto one’s head upon entrance. It was starting to be a bit cliché, was it not?

001 pulled out a torch and switched it on. She pointed the light cone into the corridor in front of them. Nothing more than walls, several closed doors, frowsty air, and countless cobwebs were around them, on both sides. Whoever lived in that house had moved out long ago, and it was left without an owner since then. 

Morstan lighted the corridor so 007 could safely go forward. He gestured her to follow him and watch his back. Both Double-Ohs continued on their way to the centre of the house, nearly running, and came to a staircase leading upstairs. It was a three-storey building.

“005 is upstairs. We have three minutes,” announced Bond to agent Morstan dryly. His solemn mask of a spy pressed by a tight situation was on. He broke into a run. He took three steps at a time and so did 001. 

“Q, in which room exactly is 005 to be found?” Bond asked the old Quartermaster as he ran upstairs, breathless. The comms were still open. 

_“Go to the third floor,”_ informed him Q, and Bond rolled his eyes, because he already knew that and Q was only hindering him. Good old Major Boothroyd, God rest his soul. _“Then turn left and enter flat number 12. He ought to be inside, if the system hasn’t miscalculated the situation.”_

 _If the system hasn’t miscalculated the situation_ , that was a really helpful piece of information. However, Bond had no time to have second thoughts. He sprinted to the door of said flat, 001 high on his heels. 005 doubtlessly was not alone, and so he prepared for an immediate attack. 

It won’t be as smooth this time. Fortunately, there were two of them.

Bond kicked the door open again. This time, it triggered an automatic mechanism that fired two rapid shots in Bond and Morstan’s direction.

Both agents ducked in a split second. The bullets did not hit the bull’s-eye—they embedded in a wall opposite the door. After that laughable attempt to kill two trained Double-Oh agents, gunfire seemed to have ceased. It was a poor mechanism yet well thought-out, they had to admit that. 

But then the kidnappers opened fire on them again. They chose submachine guns. 

The agents took cover behind a wall at once and prepared to return the attack. 005 was nowhere in sight, thus they did not need to worry about hitting him by accident. Bond listened attentively. He tried to determine the shooter’s whereabouts. 

He was closer to the door than Morstan, so he was the first to uncover and make a step to the door, where he was exposed, and could have got it quite easily. He did not even look; the moves were automatic. He fired enough rounds for the probability of hitting the target to increase on 90 percent. That short stretch of time, which he had before he reached the wall on the other end of the doorway, was enough for a man as skilled as he to strike, triumphant. 

Four bullets were wasted in vain before the fifth found its target, and Bond could hear a moan and a thump as the man fell dead on the floor. 

It didn’t seem that there was somebody else in the flat, so he entered it, and Morstan followed suit. Neither of them put the safety catch on or holstered their pistol. 

They split to gain a better chance of finding 005 and the switch the fastest. They only had a minute left. Bond went to the right and Morstan took the left side of the place. 

Bond opened one door, only to find nothing but an empty room with old wallpapers peeling off in the corners behind them. Really, couldn’t Q give them a more precise location?

He moved on to next door. He opened it quickly—and found an unconscious brunet in a ragged and dirty button-down and trousers, strapped to a chair, cuffed, and beaten up inside. Another submachine gun, connected to a small device counting down to the explosion and a motion sensor, pointed at his forehead. Big, read numbers said 00:39.

There was almost no light, but he could imagine everything quite clearly.

“I found 005 and the switch,” Bond reported. Both 001 and Q could hear it. 

Bond ran to the chair and looked at the mechanism. To cancel the detonation, he would have to pick the device and press a button that was on the other side, but that would necessarily mean moving it, and that would mean _bang_ , 005 with a hole in the head. 

If he tried to free the agent from the straps, it would have an equal result. It was a no-win situation. 

He had to make quick decisions. It was either saving the agent, which was the original purpose of the mission, and losing thousands of innocent people, or sacrificing one life and saving all of theirs.

The choice was difficult and easy simultaneously. He knew M would be willing to sacrifice an agent in the state of utter and desperate emergency, and this was the case. He was willing to do the same, too.

He was stretching his hand forward—he would grab it any second now—when 001 stormed into the room. She was smart. She figured out what he was about to do immediately. 

“No, you can’t do that, James; you’ll kill him!” she screamed and tried to stop his hand from further moving. But he was quick and grabbed the agent’s arm before she managed to do anything.

The timer read 00:24.

“It’s one life against thousands, Mary. I have to do it; I have no other option.” He looked 001 to the eye, and saw desperation. 

005 was not just 001’s mission partner but also her partner for life.

A tear ran down her pale face, and then another. She sobbed.

“Please, James!” she blurted, begging. She was resolute in getting Bond away from the rifle and switch. She did not want to give up. “Anthony’s life is more valuable than the lives of some Bulgarian peasants who you haven’t even seen!”

Feelings clouded her judgement completely; this was not the cold and firm 001 Bond knew. Yet, he understood her. He could never forget Vesper. 

“I am sorry, Mary, I really am,” he said compassionately and almost threw 001 aside. Hurting her was the last thing he cared about at the moment. 

He quickly reached for the device saying 00:19, flipped it over, and ran two bullets through it. There wasn’t enough time for unscrewing the screws, opening the lid, and handling it manually. He knew that would put the device out and disable transmission of the signal setting the detonator off. 

He still tried to knock the gun rest with the rifle down, but it was too late. The mechanism has triggered once he touched the small box, and he could do nothing to stop the bullets from hitting the target, who happened to be Anthony Burkins, codename 005. 

When he heard the bullets embed in the man’s body, he closed his eyes and flinched. He still was a good friend of his and Mary’s partner, after all. 

Thinking of Mary, he turned round. He saw her get up from the ground and run to 005 as soon as the fire ceased. She screamed and cried, miserable. She crouched next to the body and started to jiggle it fiercely, as if she could still bring him back to the land of the living. Yet, it was forlorn. No one could survive three shots right in the brains. 

Blood was all over the wall, and it almost made Bond sick. That was for the first time.

She was desperate, and couldn’t think reasonably. She threw herself at him, holding him in her arms. She did not want to admit he could be gone. She did not want to let him go, not yet. 

Bond got up as well and crossed those two metres, but when he tried to lay a comforting hand on her shoulders, she suddenly grabbed it and twisted it behind his back swiftly, with force large enough it hurt him intensely. Sometimes, he still forgot she was MI6’s best agent with strength and skills worth two men. 

“I hate you!” she yelled hostilely, and more salty tears welled up from her lachrymal ducts.

“I know, Mary, I know. And I know you will probably hate me for this till the end of my days, but we need to go now,” Bond replied calmly yet persuasively and freed himself from her tight grip. He, sans her assistance and willingness, pulled her away from 005. She struggled significantly less.

He was actually surprised she did not aim her gun at him. 

He checked his watch for the time. It was safe to tell no explosion occurred or will occur now. The town was safe, but for what price? 

“We can’t just leave him here like this! You and your negligent attitude and rough demeanour and blue eyes and innuendos—but do you ever think about the others, you twat!? I’m not leaving him here!”

“It has been dealt with already… hasn’t it, Q?”

 _“Yes, I have given the order to send a helicopter and extraction team. My technicians will defuse the explosive, secure the crime scene, and pick up the body,”_ Q affirmed through radio and after a short pause, he added, _“What a terrible tragedy. We were all fond of 005; he listened to orders and returned all equipment, unlike_ someone _.”_

Bond was certain the old engineer sighed. He had been through a lot too, and it must have been as terrible for him as for the two of them. He had heard it all through the comms. 

“Tony is more than a simple _body_ ,” Morstan snapped at the man. “How can you say that with such ease? How are you going to sleep at night, eh, Q? How are you going to sleep, knowing you'd contributed to a bloody murder?” 

“That’s enough, 001,” said 007 rigidly. He dragged her out of the room by her arm; he had to make every effort to do so, because she was terribly defiant. “It’s none of his fault.” 

_It was a fault of those bastards, who dared to take him and use him as bait to get us here and get us killed, only._

Bond led agent Morstan to their car and got behind the wheel. She huddled on the backseats, sobbing and crestfallen. She did not say a word on their way to the nearest airport. She had every right to be pissed at Bond. She definitely did. 

But there truly hadn’t been any other option.

 

Both agents were back on British soil by evening, and so was the team with 005’s body and bombs. They both sat in M’s office, listening to the very cross woman’s debrief on the mission. A failed mission. 

They might have prevented a catastrophe, but the reason they had gone to Bulgaria in the first place was bringing 005 back, safe and unharmed, with which returning in a body bag didn’t exactly comply.

They found out about the explosives later. 

The funeral is holding on Sunday, and all Six employees are attending. It had been a tragedy they did not go through for quite the time, and no one had seen it coming. Everyone was sad, in a way. Burkins had been their friend.

Agent Morstan resigned with immediate effect as soon as she got the chance to speak to M alone. She did not want to have anything to do with SIS or Bond anymore, not after this. It was too much. 

Needless to say, M did not want to accept it. Morstan was her most dependable and most precise operative, and she did not want to give up such talent. 001 still had eight years of active duty in front of her before mandatory retirement. M doubted she would ever find someone like her again.

Nevertheless, the Head had no other option than to accept the notice. She did so after all, with a sigh and one last offer to change her mind and stay. She would give her few months off, anything to keep her in the Service. 

But Morstan did not want to change her mind. That was her final decision, and she was stubborn. No one could alter her attitude to the job of a killer. 

Thus, the position of 001 was vacant again—for years to come.

Mary Morstan left Headquarters with pride but a sad, depressed expression on her face. She still did not talk to anyone unless it was at the point of exigency. 

She had not seen any of the staff again, Bond included, or at least with her acknowledgement. 

 

Not until 24th December 2015 in her husband’s best friend’s house when the new Quartermaster, who happened to be Sherlock and Mycroft’s brother, unexpectedly showed up at the doorstep with 007 by his side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the 1995 part is probably kind of shite, but it's canon divergence fic, and I got that idea while watching Kingsman.
> 
> In the second part, by Q I mean John Cleese's Q from 'Die Another Day'.


	4. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is the moment when it starts to be interesting. Promise.

The eerie tension in the living room was running high. James and Mary could not cease to glare daggers at each other. Had the woman’s daughter dressed in pink and red clothes with reindeer on it not turned her little head to her mother and began to mutter something, which made Mary bend her head down and pay attention to her again, God knows how for long the embarrassing moment would last. 

Q was the first to gather his wits and say, if a bit confused and awkward, “001? The renowned 001, that- that’s you? Well, you look very much alike her, I must say.” He walked to the couple on the sofa and stretched out his hand to shake it with her, a shy smile on his face. “Anyway, I am delighted to meet you. My name is Andrew Holmes.” 

He wasn’t really enthusiastic about the idea of telling someone his full name, but he couldn’t very well introduce himself under the usual moniker of a letter in such company. Neither of his parents knew what his occupation truly was—they still thought it was some kind of IT company—and hearing the two Double-Oh codes being uttered had been scandalous enough already. Besides, he suspected 001 knew he was the Quartermaster of MI6 anyway. 

“Yes, I’ve heard a word or two about The Other One,” she said. “But what the hell is he doing here?” Mary cast a glance at Bond once more, frowning. In a whisper, she added, “And it’s Mary Watson. No one calls me by… _that name_.” 

Q knew. He wanted to say he apologised for James, but didn’t. “That is rather complicated,” Q directed his gaze at James, and the scintilla of dourness in his eyes indicated very clearly that he wanted him to be silent about their relationship. “But I’m afraid he is staying for all of the holidays, so just try not to get in each other’s way.” That was probably the best advice Q could give. 

Q shook hands with Mary’s husband, who introduced as John Watson, too, and smiled at the girl a little wider. She was admittedly adorable, in that jumper of hers and having her mother’s eyes. Q always liked children, just as much as the feline creatures. 

He didn’t want to share his surprisingly positive attitude towards kids with James, since, according to his partner, two years wasn’t that much of a long time, and he wasn’t sure whether he would feel the same way. He could, however, actually imagine the two of them adopting a child one day, perhaps, if they ever get married… 

Q chased away the train of thought. He was just being silly. That wasn’t who James Bond was. That wasn’t who he was. He had his work. He had his problems. His cats. His life. And a broken family.

“Mary, what is going on? Why did he call you by a number?” John asked his wife, bewildered and frowning just as well. 

“He’s someone from my past. Don’t be concerned with it, sweetheart,” she attempted to satisfy his curiosity, looking him in the eye. Was there a subtle smile on her face?

She must have truly loved him, as she had loved 005 once. It was sad, in its own way. 

“Come on, Rosie, let’s go to the lounge to Uncle Mycroft and Uncle Greg.” Mary got up, still holding her daughter in her arms, and slowly shuffled across the entire ground floor to the lounge. She left John where he was sitting on the sofa. 

He got up just a few seconds later when his wife’s actions dawned on him, and came after her. John stopped when he passed James only to shake hands with him and introduce himself. “James Bond,” the higher, older man said. John quickened his pace.

He was not aware of John’s knowledge of Mary’s past, thus he added nothing to the name. 

Bond got to make everyone’s acquaintance by then, barring ‘Uncle Greg’, that boyfriend of Mycroft’s.

Walking away, John glanced at his best friend and his wife, who were quietly discussing something for the entire time (Sherlock seemed to be mildly nervous and displeased with the situation, and he looked as if he really needed to have a smoke), and the silent hosts who had the exact same face on. They didn’t know what was that about either—well, how could they; they had no idea who Mary was before she had met John.

“Alright, now, who wants a biscuit? Home-made,” asked Mrs Holmes readily to ease the atmosphere. She smiled at both her sons and then she scuttled to the kitchen. She didn’t wait for an answer—no one had expressed a distaste for a biscuit. 

Mother returned at once, with a tray of marvellously looking Christmas biscuits in her hands. They smelled of chocolate and oranges. That was the scent one could smell when they had entered the house, then. 

Seeing and smelling them, Q realised he actually _was_ peckish. He had always loved those biscuits. 

They reminded him of all those Christmases spent in the family house when he was a child. Since he commenced his studies at university, he has never seen them otherwise than two days old in a misted plastic box that Mother kept in the cupboard just for him when he came home. He hasn’t eaten a freshly baked one for… blimey, he couldn’t recall. 

He walked to meet Mother halfway. He reached for two chocolate-and-orange biscuits. He bit one, savouring the wonderful taste of plain chocolate and orange zest in vanilla pastry baked just perfectly. Q closed his eyes, and memories of his childhood filled his thoughts. 

He let out a blissful, delightful moan, “Mmmhhmm… these are genuinely delicious, Mother. I don’t think I know the reason why I haven’t come here for that long anymore.”

“Oh, you do, Andrew, you do. And don’t you think I forgive that,” she grumbled at her son. Yet, she has always been of good heart, and it was quite evident she really was not mad at him. Father, on the other hand…

He took a biscuit as well. Mother then walked those few steps to James and offered him to try one. The agent wanted to refuse at first, but then Q said, “You must take one, James, they are simply fantastic.” His partner’s expression, persuasive voice, and all that enthusing over the food brought him round to reach for one, despite he wasn’t the one to have a sweet tooth and celebrate Christmas including _all_ the traditions. 

As for the holidays, it usually meant an office party and shopping at the Christmas markets all over London. Family gatherings weren’t his idea of a well-spent time. This year it was a rare exception for Q and Q only, his beloved partner who hated this kind of things even more. It was nothing if not polite to help himself to a little snack to satisfy the hostess. 

“Thank you, Mrs Holmes,” he said and cracked a subtle smile. He took a bite of the pastry. Q was right—it was wonderful indeed. He was certain that Mrs Holmes’ Christmas biscuit was one of the best things he’d ever put in his mouth, and that he had put quite a _lot of things_ in there. The combination of chocolate, vanilla, and oranges was simply _right_. 

“I’m glad you enjoy the pastry,” chirped Mother cheerily. She turned to everyone else in the room. Her eyes rested on Sherlock’s wife, and she mothered, frowning, “Help yourself, Irene, you are so skinny! You know very well you need to eat, given the state you are in.”

‘State you are in’? What did Mother mean? Q already had a hunch, and he didn’t like it.

Irene got up once more and took four biscuits from the tray, which delighted Mrs Holmes significantly. She passed her husband one of them and kept three for herself, immediately biting the first. She found her place on his lap and snuggled between his legs and a pillow.

That act left Q slightly surprised. One would think a woman like her—born in the high society, knowing her way around politics, wearing all those trendy clothes—would strictly watch her weight and figure and disdain something like a sugary Christmas biscuit with nose turned up; yet, she’d done the exact opposite. It had taken Mother less effort to persuade her to take it than she and Q had needed for James.

“We are starving, are we not?” whispered Irene, yet loud enough for everyone to hear it. Intentionally. She petted her stomach gently, looking at Sherlock while doing so. Oh. Q _was_ right after all. 

She noticed James and Q were staring at her, and winked. _She truly winked_. 

As though five Holmeses, irrespective of all the other relatives as Mr Holmes’ sister and her family, weren’t enough. Now there was soon going to be the vexing sociopathic detective Sherlock Homes’ little clone running around the face of the earth.

Sherlock gave his wife and her abdomen a distant smile and closed his eyes. The apples of his eyes flitted under the lids fast, as if he was trying to dig something up from his mind palace even now, at Christmas. Was he working on a case? 

He was definitely attempting to concentrate in the busy, domestic surroundings. Perhaps it was just a heavy repression of the obvious need to have a cigarette. The man pressed his lips together, face sombre. He never touched his shortbread. 

Q wanted to tell him the biscuit is going to help him with anything he was trying to do or not to do, because Mother’s biscuits just had the effect—they magically fixed any problem—but Irene directed her gaze at the detective again and spoke first, “Sherly, have a bite, you don’t want to offend Mummy.” She’d purred in his ear. Just like James. Honestly, how much alike _were_ the two of them? “Besides, a few days more and I’d _really_ cut myself on your ribs.”

Q decided to ignore the pair of them, just as he had ignored his brother for years, and went to the now empty sofa to sit down with his shortbread, followed by James. The agent wrapped his arm round Q’s shoulders and pulled him closer with his strong hands. The man’s presence and warmth of his body helped Q feel more at ease. 

Q pulled out his mobile to check for any updates from his Right Hand R—he wouldn’t be able to survive eight days in the country sans contact with Q-Branch—and when he ensured everything was in perfect order, he allowed himself to relax completely, as possible as it was in such company. 

Both men finished their biscuits and asked Mrs Holmes for more; they were oh so delicious! 

She rushed to her youngest son in an instant, bringing the tray with her. She sat next to Q. “Now tell me, Andy, what were you doing throughout those years, that you couldn’t give me at least _one_ phone call, hmm?”

“Mother, please, how many times do I need to remind you that I hate it when you call me _Andy_?” Q stated and sighed, looking her in the eye with pure irritation. James grinned and pressed a discreet kiss on his cheek. 

Q lifted his glasses with one hand and rubbed his eyes with resignation. He did not care his fingers were all sticky and sweet with chocolate whatsoever. Suddenly, his muscles tensed again.

“Long history. That’s a bloody long history, and I think you wouldn’t believe me if I told you anyway.”

“Language!” she slapped him on his shoulder teasingly. Sherlock simpered. 

“And how have you and your James met, anyway? You can tell us that at least! We are glad you’re happy, but you could have told us something,” Mr Holmes joined in the querying conversation. He sat down on the other side of the sofa, next to James. 

Q knew the meeting had always been heading towards this. The questioning was inevitable. He hated it. 

Nevertheless, Mother eased up on him already. She helped herself to a biscuit as well, making everyone in the living room eat them until they’ll all have been gone and resting peacefully in their stomachs. Her gaze was rather insistent. 

She hated how thin everyone was, not fed well enough—which was, sadly, true in most cases, but on Q or Sherlock’s defence, the occupations they had and the lives they lead were somewhat time-consuming and difficult on minding meals. 

Q started talking. Of course, he gave the part about working for the Government a necessary miss. 

 

Relative peace and even some sort of cheery Christmas ambience suffused the room progressively, the tension ebbing away. All was quiet, blithe, lacking any further hubbub of interrogative questioning and disgruntled noises emitted by Q. Yes, the parents still asked questions, but not as uncomfortable and pressing. 

Mycroft, Lestrade, and the Watsons sat at a round, white table in the lounge, talked about work, and played with Rosamund. Sherlock, Irene, James, Q, and Mr and Mrs Holmes sat about in the living room armchairs, continuously nibbling at the biscuits. 

The parents tried to coax every detail of James and Q’s jobs and relationship out of the couple, who had to be extremely careful about the information they were giving them. No one wanted top-secret material unintentionally leaking out. 

It was well past noon, therefore everyone got up and went to the kitchen to get some soup in their biscuit-full yet hungry stomachs as a light lunch. It was Christmas: they could afford something better than a simple sandwich for once. 

The atmosphere in the small room thickened once the Double-Ohs came in contact again and exchanged few more spiteful looks, accompanied by confused ones from the others, yet, they said nothing and did their best to get along somehow. 

 

However, it wouldn’t be a true English Christmas if something didn’t come about. It was not exactly an enormous spaceship floating above London, but four government employees, a detective, a soldier, a dominatrix, and a DI in one room bode ill no less.

It was 12:28 when Mycroft, James, Q, and Mary’s phones rang, simultaneous. That was suspicious enough. They knew what the four of them had in common, and why it was they who were being needed. Even Mary was aware. She was not happy about it, not in the least. 

It was M reporting a worldwide state of emergency. 

“What is going on, M?” or a variation of such question blurted all called in the speakers.

It must have been truly grave if MI6 called the former 001, whose number they’d saved only for cases of utmost crises. 

M was in hurry, judging by the heavy breathing on the other side of the line. _“The sodding SIM cards have launched transmitting again. It’s the exact same situation as the last time. Everybody's succumbed to the urge to kill. There is another V-Day.”_ The boss paused, processing the things he has just said. _“Thanks to our Quartermaster we at Six are protected – you truly are a genius – but there is literal carnage going on in rest of the world. I need you all here, ASAP. You too, 001. You are our best chance to stop it all.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure about the talks between the Holmeses and everyone else, esp Q, and slight ooc-iness... Anyway, hope you enjoyed!  
> Kingsmen in next chapter!


	5. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, there are Kingsmen here!

No one asked any questions. Everyone got up in a hurry and rushed to the front door. They grabbed their garments and put them on, hasty, checking whether the constantly present pistols or revolvers were still behind the waistbands of their trousers and in the inner pockets of their jackets. 

The others did not even manage to react: all they could do was casting confused glances at each other whilst rising from their chairs, shrugging. His parents and Lestrade gave Mycroft a questioning look.

The soup lay abandoned on the table, getting cold. 

He said nothing, but the look in his eyes warned them not to ask any further questions, which he wasn’t permitted to answer anyway. Government business. 

Perhaps they did understand that the call concerned official, government matters, and thus he was obliged to keep all secrets from the civilians. 

He gave his boyfriend a quick, chaste kiss. He did not mind the obvious raised eyebrow.

To be honest, this unforeseen ‘incident’ was a good excuse for the need to get out of the house infested with hideous Christmas decorations and overly domestic atmosphere. That thought was horrible—but accurate. 

Mary kissed her daughter on the forehead and caressed her soft, blonde hair. She apologised to John, “Sorry, sweetheart, but this is urgent in earnest. I have to go. I’ll explain everything once it’s over, promise. Just… don’t go outside at all costs!”

She truly hoped he would listen to her warnings. Even though they had had their quarrels and unfinished business from the past, she had got John to trust her again. Hell, they had a daughter. He really should listen, and so should everyone else. 

But of course, curiosity was part of the Holmeses’ nature, and they _had to_ get up and run to the door after the agents. Seeing them switch their happy, relaxed faces saved for the closest people for the accustomed solemn and concentrated looks and handle weapons made them throw even more of those questioning looks at each other.

Irene was chewing on a half-eaten biscuit. Alas, she stood too close to John and Rosamund in his armful, and the little girl made a grab at it once she caught sight of it. Sherlock and she were so focused on the muddle at the front door that they did not even note her action. 

John figured out it had probably related to Mary’s previous occupation and contents of the USB drive he had thrown in the fireplace, unread. He didn’t argue over the unexpected departure. What _did_ surprise him, though, was the involvement of Sherlock’s mysterious brother and his terrifying, brawny boyfriend. 

He thought something had been very off on him, and now he knew what it was. He worked at SIS with Mycroft, or somewhere of the sorts. Of course he did. 

 

The Holmes family’s house, fortunately, stood comparatively isolated and out of the wave’s reach, since neither of them owned Valentine’s SIM card; that, however, did not apply to the rest of the city and world. The quartet of government employees needed to get to headquarters, and that necessarily meant entering areas contaminated by the neurological wave. 

Q _had_ analysed the cards and found out what kind of twisted little devices they were as soon as the man initiated his campaign—it was more than suspicious that an Internet billionaire with megalomaniac inclinations had given people all over the world free SIM cards just because he had wanted to be extremely generous—but alas, the special, earpiece-shaped signal jammers he had invented were still in his lab under the Thames. 

He had made enough pairs to keep the group of them safe, but the question was how to get to them.

His foreboding had proved to be accurate. When a frequency was activated, a special, advanced programme switched on with it. It broadcasted a neurological wave that made certain parts of the human brain go crazy and violent with no boundaries whatsoever—and be there chaos ruling the earth. 

All MI6 employees had, of course, been apprised of the fact, and so were Whitehall with their closest friends and families, therefore, none of the house’s occupants had even thought about acquiring one of the cards. 

Furthermore, they had sent an undercover agent to Valentine’s residence in order to discover more about his praised project. 

MI6 knew all about the satellites, biometric-controlled table, or his plan to spare everyone whom he considered worthy, namely politicians and wealthy snobs dumb enough to let Valentine and his doctors implant a device that may have transmitted a counter signal, but also contained a miniature dose of very potent explosive in case something went wrong, behind their ear. 

Only, if such society were the only ones to survive the purge, who would provide them with food and clothes or repair the broken? Villains like Valentine _always_ forgot to think about such essential matters. Where would their dream world be in a month? Two? 

Q thought how insane and irrational those evil plans were. Haven’t they learnt their lesson yet, from all the films?

 

The group ran out of the house. They stopped on the lawn surrounding it, looking round them and at each other as if they were trying to find answers floating in the air. 

“We need to get to HQ, but passing the city is impossible. We won’t make it,” Mary pointed the obvious thought no one wanted to think about. The former authority and sober-sided tone of a spy crept into her voice automatically. For a moment, she forgot she had no longer held the position of 001. 

“I have an idea,” Q reacted promptly, with a cryptic, knowing smile that suggested he has just thought of something brilliant forming on his face. “Mycroft, have you got any way of getting to the largest of Six’s helicopters?” 

“Of course I have, brother, but the question is why, and why should I even trust you after all those years of isolating yourself and that escapade with the government servers?” 

Mycroft was sceptical to Q’s acts and work, although it was he who personally authorised Q’s promotion to the Quartermaster of MI6. He remembered that time 17 years ago when he hacked the government’s system and knocked it out for all of two weeks just because he found university _too boring_ all too well. 

Andrew was so much alike Sherlock it terrified him. God knew what he could do now when he had the security clearance and free access to information from all over the world. To classified information.

“Firstly, I am your brother, as you’ve just pointed out. Secondly, I was 18. And thirdly, right now I am humanity’s only chance of survival, as I have a way of getting us to HQ shielded from the influence of the wave and stopping the massacre once and for all, which you are very well aware of. So I would advise you to put brotherly hatred aside since we all have to define our priorities, which is deactivating Valentine’s SIM cards,” Q expressed himself, vigorous. He looked his older brother in the eye. 

Adrenaline flowed in his bloodstream. He meant what he said to the last syllable and stood by it. He was right and everyone knew it. 

“However I might hate it, I must admit you are indeed right, Andrew,” the oldest of the Holmes brothers admitted, having the customary glimpse or arrogance and polish in his utterance. “What is your plan?”

“I need someone of my staff to bring me my neuro-wave absorbers, so we could safely get in the afflicted areas. All roads are certainly impassable, that’s why we require a helicopter. Besides, it’s faster,” answered Q casually, as if it were the most self-evident thing, and smiled complacently. 

“Oh God, you and Sherlock are so much alike,” Mary snorted, arms folded on her chest. She was curious how and when the conversation will turn out. They haven’t had all day. 

She was herself again; all remnants of the spy nature of 001 were gone from her expression. She quickly forgot, but she could make the vigilance and firmness kick in anytime needed just as well. 

Mycroft pulled his mobile out of his jacket’s pocket, found the last number in the logs, and pressed dial. He lifted it to his ear and waited. He was tapping his foot on the ground nervously. 

After two rings, Gareth Mallory’s tired and busy voice responded on the other side, _“Yes, Mr Holmes? Be quick and please tell me you have good news.”_

“Indeed I have, M. Your Quartermaster seems to have a plan of bringing it all to an end. I’ll put him on,” he replied and stretched the arm in which he held the mobile to give it to his brother. He left all the explaining up to him.

Q took it. “Good day, sir,” he said politely. No one had a thought of civilities with the previous call. “I need a helicopter and a pilot ASAP, along with four pairs of devices absorbing the signal transmitted by the cards. I have them in the Q-Branch vault—although, you, Ms Moneypenny, and all agents have a pair in the desk. Could you arrange that?”

_“Of course. Anything to stamp down the dreadful slaughter at once. I am sending Ms Moneypenny to your coordinates, which are just being downloaded.”_ M rang off with this information. Q returned the phone to Mycroft. 

He prayed for Eve to remember where all the buffers are and to arrive at the Holmeses’ house quickly. But knowing her for years and having the pleasure of being close friends with her, he knew she still was a capable pilot and always punctual, no matter the circumstances. The fact she quit fieldwork and became M’s personal assistant changed nothing about that. 

“Moneypenny is on the way,” he informed James, Mycroft, and Mary. “Or at least she will be in a few minutes.” 

“We don’t have that much,” noted 007. Q’s James was no longer present. This was the agent of Queen and Country speaking. Q could see he looked nervy. “Innocent lives fade away by every second we stand here and stare at plain grassland, doing nothing about the horrible plight.”

“I’m surprised it’s you who says that, Bond,” implied Mary wryly. Although it has been four years since the Bulgaria incident and she got married and gave birth to a daughter, she still couldn’t get over it _completely_.

“007 is right, Mrs Watson. The precious time is the only thing we don’t have and need the most of all, and we are wasting it in vain. Right now, I would give everything to have a TARDIS,” said Q, murmuring the reference to his favourite series under his breath, “which we don’t have either. However, we do have someone who might help us if he isn’t under the wave’s influence; and let’s hope he isn’t.”

The reference made the other crack a smile even a situation as bad as this. Everyone there has watched _Doctor Who_ since they were children and the Classic series were on. The thought of it gave Q another excellent idea, and his eyes lighted up. Mycroft certainly won’t be a fan of it, though.

“And who might that be?” James asked. He stepped closer to his partner.

“An old acquaintance of mine. Someone I haven’t remembered for years,” answered Q. He was already rummaging through his pockets for his mobile. When he found it, he pressed the contacts icon and later the letter M. The required name was right under Mallory’s. (He still didn’t change it to M. He didn’t have the heart to do so.)

Q dialled the number, truly hoping his friend wasn’t occupied with killing people in the streets of London or, God forbid, dead. 

To Q’s relief, the Scotsman picked up the phone. _“Andrew Holmes, is that you?”_ he queried. He was clearly taken aback. 

“Yes, it’s me.”

_“Well hello to you, but I’m rather busy right now, in case you haven’t noticed what’s going on. Speaking of, how come you’re conscious and phoning me?”_

“That is exactly what I could ask you,” Q returned dryly. He looked round himself. But of course, the helicopter was nowhere to be seen yet. “Anyway, what is going on is the problem. I assume you have access to a computer, Merlin?” 

The question was rather irrelevant since he could hear silent typing on the other side of the line. 

Q did not bother to tell the man he now worked for the British Government as the Quartermaster of MI6, known under the nickname of Q.

He truly regretted letting James persuade him into leaving his laptop resting at home. He had reasoned that he shouldn’t take work everywhere with him and that Christmas is a holiday one is supposed to spend with their family in peace, and yes, he had been right—yet, if Q had held onto his opinions, they wouldn’t be in this mess at all. Or they’d be in less mess, anyway.

He remembered having a really old computer with ultra large and thick screen and slow CPU in his bedroom, but it didn't offer any better help than a tablet and wireless connection. 

Q’s priority was to locate the source of the signal and initiate transmitting a disruptive frequency that would fight and overcome the one from the SIM cards. He had taken inspiration in the implants when creating a device that could do so. 

Nonetheless, they could do nothing but wait for Moneypenny to arrive in the helicopter. 

_“Yes, of course I do. How can you even ask such stupid question, genius mind?”_ replied Merlin, and Q was certain he rolled his eyes at him. He didn’t need to be nearby to imagine what his glum face looked like. 

Q’s eyes flew from James to Mycroft and to Mary and then to the sky above them before he looked back at James. He pondered about the current situation and tried to think of the most effective plan in practically no time. His brain worked on 1000 percent. Absolute concentration was as though dripping from his ears. 

“Alright, just forget about that. I need you to stay in contact; I’ll explain my plan later. I need to go.” He rang off, tossed his mobile inside the messenger bag carelessly, and fished out a thin tablet he had enhanced in all regards, both software and hardware. He turned it on and logged into MI6 servers, through which he could direct and amplify the anti-frequency. 

Everyone watched his skilful, spindly fingers swiftly type and click and run round the screen with great interest. No one made a sound. They understood that right now, disturbing Q would be a terribly bad idea. 

“I am setting off an inverse signal that will disturb the frequency transmitted by the compromised SIM cards, broadcast by London communications towers in twenty kilometre radius via our servers, which enabled me the connection to the tower and amplified it,” he explained, as though he sensed all the queries hanging in the air. “It is a matter of waves and frequencies only. I came with this little smart trick right after the uproar caused by V-Day ebbed away, in case it was to be repeated sometime in the future. It seems my presentiment was correct after all.”

Q typed coded orders on the virtual keyboard of his tablet. He launched the signal channelled into the Crystal Palace and few more radio towers with few simple steps. 

The signal was transmitted as VHF waves any radio in London could pick up. Most smartphones had a radio app, therefore it could cancel out the SIM-transmitted signal, and a mobile became nothing more than ordinary mobile again. 

Because how else would you disrupt a signal beamed by mobile phones than by creating a countersignal and transmitting it from a giant tower over the city? It was his invention, and Q could be nothing but proud of the idea. 

He did not even have to be present in his lab to initiate counterattack; all he needed was a tablet. Even that ten-year-old crate in his room would be sufficient. 

“Finished,” said Q as he wrote the last line of commands. He sighed in relief and added, “We won’t need those earpieces anymore.”

That was only ironical and reduced version of the truth that ran: _I have just saved the entire London from a purge, which perhaps, only perhaps, fifty percent of its inhabitants would survive, only with my tablet and ice-cold fingers, and it took me two minutes in all. You’re welcome._

He put the tablet back inside his bag. His hands were numb with cold indeed. He, unfortunately, did not have those special touchpad gloves he loved so much. Frankly, he couldn’t understand how on earth he could forget such an important thing. 

Mary concluded Q really is as good as they say he is. 

Mycroft snorted, thinking his brother was only showing off as ever; however, he had to admit he might have been a tiny bit wrong about him. 

James was very well aware of things his partner could do, and not only with a computer. He gave him an unconscious yet sincere smile. He had the urge to beam every time Q said something equally sarcastic or did something equally impressive. 

Q, in fact, made him smile as no one else could when he was round him. 

That only proved how much James loved him. 

 

The signal maybe covered London and its vicinity, but even that was more than enough. Even if everything else failed, and MI6 with Kingsman, a secret organisation no one was supposed to know about, could not prevent a worldwide massacre, Q could console himself with the fact he had saved one metropolis and nearly nine million people living in it. 

His family, friends, and colleagues were safe, together with the royal family and all government members, and that was most important. 

 

Q had no idea SPECTRE was behind it all. The American had covered all traces with absolute precision; not even their agent had ascertained he was a member of an organisation whose tentacles reached all over the world and connected supervillains in one huge, undefeatable network. _Almost_ undefeatable. 

He only knew Valentine had successors who were intent on continuing to fulfil his glorious plan to ‘cure’ the Earth from an infection killing it. 

The moment Valentine was killed by one of the Kingsmen back in February, 009 had retired back to HQ with a full report on what he had known about V-Day and Kingsman so far. 

No one had known the event was not over yet. No one could have really anticipated it was to start over in ten months. 

 

Before 009 started to spy on Richmond Valentine, Mallory had assigned him to pretend he was one of the fresh recruits for the Lancelot post at Kingsman under a false identity of a rich, spoiled brat from an influential family. Kingsman was an independent secret service outside the government or other resources – and Mr Holmes wanted to have an eye on them, for he didn’t like it whatsoever. And neither did M. 

They had bases all over the world, operated with utmost secrecy, and most certainly had better success rate of their missions than all the government-funded organisations together. Both M and Mycroft Holmes slept more soundly when they knew that they were monitored. 

Every time 009 had had a moment of free time, he had pried in their archives, tried to question senior members and their Quartermaster inconspicuously, and planted bugs in rooms the trainees were forbidden from to eavesdrop when no one was inside. He had been sending all gathered information to Q biweekly.

The Double-Oh training he had absolved ensured that agent Turner will have made it to top three candidates, together with a girl named Roxanne Morton and Eggsy Unwin, a son of a dead knight. They were both skilled and capable operatives; however, 009 could beat them easily and win the position if he needed to. 

M would have been willing to sacrifice a good agent on behalf of having the service under long-term surveillance, hadn’t trouble named Valentine occurred. 

Q had thought there was something off about his SIM cards from the very beginning, because no normal person would give everyone in the world free calling and Internet. There had been a catch, and, of course, he had been proven to be right. 

On their Quartermaster’s suggestion, they had turned Charlie Hesketh into a traitor (nothing easier, really, when you know the right people) and sent him to observe the man instead. Kingsman had turned out to be of benefit to Holmes, especially on complicated external missions. 

They had not interfered with them, apart from keeping track of some of those assignments. They had ceased to be such pain in his arse, and he had let them do their business. Moreover, matters concerning Valentine had been of much more significant importance at that moment. 

 

In the meantime, the helicopter piloted by Q’s best friend arrived at the Holmeses’ residence. Propellers stirred up the freezing air. It scattered everyone’s hair and crawled beneath their scarves and coats. The cold was more than aggravating. 

Moneypenny left the engine running to save the precious time, therefore the group had to get on the chopper in the strong wind. Not that they weren’t used to it; on the contrary, James and Mary knew a little something about fighting in or on them. They ran inside.

Q wasn’t particularly thrilled about having to fly, which he realised only now. His idea perhaps was brilliant, but it bore unpleasant consequences he hadn’t thought of.

He was glad he had his James, who sat right next to him and held his hand (and warmed it by so). He wasn’t quite sure if he could survive the flight while preserving his clear mind and sanity without his partner. 

Q has hated travelling in any means of aerial transport—aeroplane, helicopter, or air balloon—since he was a child. His parents had once decided to take him and his brothers on holiday further than to Brighton—and had regretted it deeply later. 

“It appears I’ve spent five minutes trying to break into the safe in vein,” noted Eve peevishly as everyone settled inside the chopper. It was big enough to fit five people, or six. It was the only one Six had in their possession. Helicopters as big weren’t exactly common. 

“Welcome on board, agent 001.”

Mary, whom Eve knew from the times she was Mary Morstan with codename 001, sat next to the pilot. James and Q occupied the central seats. Mycroft had to satisfy with a plastic one in the cargo hold. No one could say he didn’t deserve it. 

The helicopter took off with loud roaring of engines and spinning propellers. It drew the attention of the rest of the house’s residents who stood on the lawn before it and observed the whole scene with mouths open yet wordless. It was all unbelievable if someone asked them. 

The agents headed back to headquarters, leaving their relatives wondering.

Now, when he was sitting and fastened to his seat, Q could pull out his tablet again and start looking for other ways of spreading the signal outside of London and England.

At least he didn’t have to think of the fact he sat in a booth made of metal and glass several hundred metres above the solid ground. 

 

Down on earth, it has mostly calmed down by then. People were confusedly looking round them and hanging about on that one place they stood (or lay) at when they came to consciousness. Some of them were running, some screaming in horror. 

They could see the terror, dismay in each other’s eyes, mess and debris lying all round them, and dead bodies of fellow-citizens they killed in the rush of violence and hatred. 

Most people had been fighting their neighbours and families, which was far worse than knowing they had gravely hurt or even killed a complete stranger. 

But for ordinary humans, it was an unimaginable shock when they realised that was exactly what they had done. A proper word that could express what the situation was like did not even exist. Monstrous was an understatement. 

Panic and chaos even greater than when the absolute cleansing of the planet Earth was launched anew broke out in the streets. Ten million of conscious, sane people began to realise what had happened and what they had done, if under the influence of a neurological wave. 

They hadn’t had control over their own bodies, and none of it had been their fault; yet, that was no consolation and vindication in their minds.

Bruised, scraped, stabbed, or in even worse condition, they slowly got up on their feet or started walking. They came to life fully, casting alarmed, hateful, or relieved looks at those next to them. Mothers and fathers threw their arms over their surviving children and cried over the dead ones. Lovers, wives, husbands, brothers, and sisters hugged and consoled each other. 

They might not be aware of the actual reality of being one of the really lucky ones. Those who were alive. 

Those who had got their hands on any kind of weapon—pistols, knives, pieces of furniture—were in the worst psychical state of all. People like them had got out of the abattoir alive in most cases—but for what cost? They couldn’t bare the mere sight of the piles of bodies covered in blood. They cursed themselves. In the worst of cases, they turned the bloody weapons against themselves.

No one would blame them if they ended up at a psychiatric clinic with PTSD or lying on the floor in their flat with pills and alcohol in their stomach after what they had done—for the second time in one year, in mos cases. 

Almost all people on Earth have experienced the horrendous occurrence twice now, and many still were in the centre of it. And MI6 did their best to stop it once and for all, since Britain was the only country awake, apart from developing countries in the poorest of African, Asian, and South American regions where practically no one owned a mobile phone.

Everyone was up on their feet. They knew the helicopter was on its way back, and that their genius Quartermaster had done—and still was doing—all he could. They were observing the course of events at home and abroad on vast screens or small smartphone displays. 

The people of MI6 had been notified that it was their base that became the crucial point to all happenings. They knew Q had connected his tablet to their (well, his) servers and used them to amplify the signal. The biggest screen of all was covered in blue and green lines of code, maps, commands, and information he was constantly sending them. 

Q-Branch workers admired him even more than before after this. Right now, he was the most powerful man on Earth, God almost. And no, whoever held their hand on the panel didn’t hold more power, because true power lay in doing good, doing what is needed, and doing what is good for the sake of all people in the world. They were doing the exact opposite, even if they thought otherwise. 

Q’s men and women frantically typed away on their keyboards in attempts to extend the anti-frequency into other European countries and North America, as a message the boss had sent via mass communication channel told them to. 

So far, they managed to reach other large cities in the UK and Ireland and pass the frequency on to more radio towers. They proceeded quickly; the signal was already approaching France and Belgium. 

Mallory was on the phone ceaselessly, talking to the Mayor of London, PM, Home Secretary, and other Secretaries of State. If one did not need anything, it was the other. He was pacing round his office, cold sweat rising on his brow. 

At Medical, doctors and nurses were busy nursing employees who had happened to be outside and therefore got caught in the violent punch-ups in the streets. They often needed stitches, or even surgery, as Six personnel had absolved some kind of physical training regardless of their position and fought inexorably, with ardour.

Agents—Double-Ohs, special agents, intelligence spies—were sent outside given the task of detaining dangerous individuals, clearing away incriminating bodies, and keeping the streets in general kilter using different, harder methods if necessary. Sometimes, police authority wasn’t enough. 

Everybody was assigned an important commission, office rats from HR included. For example, Bill Tanner was the one to give the tasks as the Chief of Staff. 

All of it was more horrible for those who sat at their computers and observed, knowing they couldn’t do shit about the situation. Such incident made even trained assassins like the Double-Ohs sick. There was a huge difference between killing a dangerous terrorist with one’s own hands and watching innocent civilians murder each other. This was just too much.

No one has started counting the victims yet.

 

On the other side of the metropolis, a bald Scotsman with glasses on his nose sat in his lab, turning from one computer and keyboard to another in unearthly speed. He tried to take one of the satellites that created a circle and transmitted the wave worldwide out of operation. Again, unsuccessfully. 

Valentine’s network was impenetrable. To get to the satellites, Kingsman would have to repeat the February intervention: one of their agents flying to space in a Halo Suit on two balloons and destroying one of them manually, i.e. by firing a missile at it. 

He sighed in relief when Arthur’s voice in the speakers told him about the act of disturbing the signal in all of the British Isles. Merlin hacked into few traffic cameras to check on the situation personally. In comparison to the circus acts he was performing for the last few minutes, it was a child’s play that everyone with basic knowledge of computers could accomplish. 

Nevertheless, localising the touch-panel table that kept the whole system in operation for as long as an authorised person held their hand on the handprint was as important as disconnecting the satellites. 

Merlin assumed Valentine’s unknown follower moved the table from the megalomaniac’s Russian bunker. However, he still couldn’t figure out its situation. The firewalls protecting their servers were a piece of work of someone atypically skilful, as no one, including him, could get past them. They were a true professional, he had to admit. 

And as he was thinking about expert hackers, secret organisations, and mysterious anti-frequency, Merlin remembered an old friend of his who called him a while ago. He said he’ll get in touch again and inform him of further details—was the disrupting wave his work? 

Well, the young boffin surely was capable of it. Merlin had to chuckle.

He has known Andrew Holmes for quite the time. He has seen great potential and ambitions in him ever since he caught him trying to get to Kingsman’s files and schemes. He had somehow learnt about its existence and, apparently, wanted to know more.

However, that wasn’t the first time he got in contact with him, not at all. It was when Holmes was studying to get his first PhD and Merlin has just got his job at Kingsman. The young lad had carried out many impressive stunts; he had cut off Google, disconnected one of four servers running the whole Internet, or hacked into traffic, by which he had made two of their missions harder than necessary. 

Once, he had nearly shut down Microsoft and penetrated some highly classified government files, but that was a story for another time. 

Long story short, Merlin was well acquainted with what he could do only because he found university classes boring, let alone what he was capable of when he did it on purpose and for the good of the world. He was proud of him. 

In spite of the actual fact the youngest Holmes was a threat and enemy hacker that belonged behind the bars, they have become quite good friends. After all, it was more than 15 years ago.

As if on cue, a message appeared on one of the screens with a ping: _Try to pick up the signal and extend it as you can. I believe you can get it to America with the equipment you’ve got in Kingsman. I am searching for the source, close to shutting it down. Can you expend a few of your knights? –Q_

He figured who the sender was, despite the unusual signature. Q. _What did_ Q _mean?_

Though, he was more interested in the request—it sounded somewhat _official_. Merlin had no idea where did Holmes end up, but from what he gathered in those few minutes of their short phone call and this very message, it must have been a position alike his, if not higher. In government services—because as far as his mind went, Queen and Country’s employees and Kingsman knights were the only ones awake for the entire time. 

No one at the service knew they had had the youngest spy from the Double-Oh programme among them for months, and neither did they know the British Government knew everything about their operations and V-Day; if not more in regards to the latter. 

Merlin recoiled for a moment before he typed in an answer. Could he miss some of his men and women in their situation? The world was in a state of crisis, and so was the UK base. Most agents were away on foreign assignments, and those who have stayed in England were currently busy controlling the situation. They were in a permanent state of busy right now. Only Lancelot, Percival, Galahad, and of course Arthur stayed in the mansion. Someone had to. 

Frankly, nothing was going to change if they were gone for some time too. Of course, Merlin will make all phone calls, clean everything up, and supervise a dozen agents in the field. Of sodding course.

_I’ve four knights I’m willing to send away if you explain everything, right bloody now. –Merlin_

The man already picked up the anti-frequency’s wavelength and attuned all radio towers and transmitters in the area by connecting to them via his and their servers. Since transmitters cast and catch signal from satellites orbiting the planet in space, the anti-frequency reached more satellites, and they could forward it to other areas. It was an easily created domino effect. 

Everyone who owned a radio or mobile with radio in it could be free once it reached them, for it was stronger and more stable than Valentine’s signal. How has Q accomplished that…

The Scot put his best effort into passing it down. The Kingsman servers were highly efficient and contributed to freeing Europe from the uncontrollable wave of violence immensely. 

Few minutes passed before a reply came. The same screen lit up in green and large green letters in a green field covered it whole. 

_We suffer from lack of agents, and therefore we need all available help. I am aware that you operate in secret, but right now we all face a crisis. We need allies everywhere possible. You at Kingsman are the world’s best chance on getting rid of the plague infecting the world, a hydra named SPECTRE. They’re the world’s most extensive and most powerful terrorist organisation. And yes, they are behind this all. Valentine was one of their members as well. I know the true extent of the knights’ abilities and I believe that in alliance with the Secret Service’s elite operatives they can make it. Better hurry up. –Q_

So the truth was not far from Merlin’s guess after all. Holmes worked for the SIS. Merlin would never believe he could make it that far and on such eminent position. 

The letter Q made sense now. It was short for _Quartermaster_. He held the same occupation in Kingsman himself and he called himself empty-headed for not figuring out the obvious. 

Merlin has never heard of an organisation called SPECTRE, but he could hazard a guess they were a quite the term at MI6. 

He abandoned his work on spreading the wave for a moment—it was spreading itself, after all—and did a small research on the association. All notorious names and faces popped in little squares on three screens: Le Chiffre, Dominic Greene, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, and Richmond Valentine being among them. There were many many more figures he has never heard of in his whole life, too.

Now, when he knew the actual names behind the purge, Merlin hesitated no longer and got up from the swivel chair he was sitting in, rash. It rolled across the office until it hit a wall with a bounce. The man ran out of the room and ran up the stairs all the way to the boardroom, two at a time. Taking the lift was too slow. 

He activated his glasses and informed the boss of updates on the second V-Day situation. He summoned the rest of the operatives. All five of them assembled at the large wooden table, this time actually present in the room instead of being the accustomed green holograms on their spectacles’ glasses. 

Merlin stood at the screen on the wall. He showed all three messages he had exchanged with his young friend and familiarised them with the latest state of affairs. 

Kingsman maybe did not usually work with intelligence services under the auspices of governments—yet, another V-Day was an exception one met once in a lifetime. And for the first time in all of history, they possessed less intel than MI6. 

According to Merlin, his friend’s brother could be trusted in the matter of keeping Kingsman secret, and that was evidently enough for Arthur. 

The young Galahad was in the midst of asking a question when green letters appearing on everyone’s glasses clouded their sight.

_They are in Rome. –Q_


	6. Four

If he wanted to continue working on his tablet, Q had to let go of James’ hand, which he didn’t like at all. They were still in midair, and having his fingers entwined with his was the sole thing he found familiarly calming among all the mayhem.

But now he had no other option than to face his phobia with adult bravery and get to work.

Firstly, he gave orders to his brilliant co-workers at Q-Branch. He informed them of his anti-frequency and the programme running it. He told them to pass it on.

He also made sure they could see every each of his moves, which made everything a little easier for them.

As soon as he knew the signal was in good hands and required its creator to spread it no longer, he re-orientated on tracking the primal neurological wave to its source.

A sudden turn pushed him deeper into the upholstered seat. Q felt as though Mother’s fabulous biscuits were ending up on the helicopter’s floor in no time. He did not find this situation any better, but he had no choice bar reconciliation with the fact he will be in the air for a while yet.

To his fortune, he could already see London’s extensive panorama with its typical houses and skyscrapers in the distance. He would almost, _almost_ , sigh in relief it was nearly over.

Moneypenny communicated with HQ through a little microphone on the pilot’s headphones non-stop. From time to time, she updated the crew on the catastrophe’s progress. Mycroft still did not quit complaining about the uncomfortable plastic seat in the cargo hold. It was, allegedly, too ‘under his dignity’. Mary and James were quiet, enjoying the beautiful view of the city they lived in.

Q frankly couldn’t understand how they were capable of relaxing at such time. But they were Double-Ohs, ergo accustomed to seeing and doing things anyone else would consider bizarre or inappropriate. One could be sure about nothing when it concerned them and their queerness.

Q initiated analysing and scanning and searching and inquiring. He tried to find the source of the neuro-wave. To accomplish that, he needed to go through infinite amounts of data and then directly link to one of the satellites broadcasting the wave. 

He could make it faster and easier if he had a functional SIM card with him, but alas—or perhaps fortunately—there was an available one nowhere near him. He kept all of his research, along with two or three cards, in his laboratory. He needed to get there as fast as possible.

“Moneypenny, could you go a little faster?” he asked the pilot impatiently. He didn’t even bother to look up from the tablet.

“Eager to get down on the ground, are we, Q?” she chuckled. “We’re almost at HQ, I’m starting to descend.” Eve initiated landing manoeuvres, and Q truly was relieved now.

When he looked out from the small window, he could see their base’s roof and a large yellow H marking the heliport on it. The flight was over—he only had to absolve a boat trip on the Thames to his lab now.

The Quartermaster has finally connected to a satellite without anyone’s awareness. Hacking controls of a satellite was not as difficult as it might seem to be. At least for one Andrew Holmes.

He was given a unique opportunity to move the satellite, break the circle, and cut off the broadcast. Q dived into lines of code and started the process. Among other things, he still needed to discover where the commands came from and where they hid the biometric-controlled table, the key to it all.

But alas, there was no time left to do so. He was compelled to bag his tablet under a remark it could corrupt the chopper’s mechanics as though it were an airliner, and something could actually go wrong.

“I almost had it!” complained Q, frowning. Saving the world really couldn’t wait! He was on the brink of a crucial discovery, and forced to relinquish his work!

There were only two things he hated as much as that—being repeatedly interrupted by meaningless notes while reading a good, gripping book, and James stealing his blankets at night. He did it _every time_ and Q was bloody _cold_.

But that issue could be solved, unlike the current one. They could simply buy two duvets instead of one large. No, he shouldn’t have allowed Eve to give him orders. More people were dying.

Q thought that if and when the carnage is over, he will make James go to that household store they had opened near their flat a few months ago. _If_ it’s over.

Moneypenny landed the helicopter and turned off the engine. The pentad got off. Q and Mycroft were unimaginably glad they could stand on their own legs and breathe fresh air.

They all headed to a staircase leading downstairs. M was waiting for them already, impatiently standing on the last step with hands behind his back. Mallory wasn’t wearing any jacket or tie; he must have been exhausted. No one blamed him.

“You can’t imagine how glad I am to see you here,” he said, but his voice didn’t make it sound as a compliment. He looked at Mary, counting all small changes on her appearance. It was four years since he saw the agent for the last time, after all. “Welcome back, 001.”

M shook hands with the former Double-Oh. “Don’t get too excited, my stay here is temporary. I’m only helping Six due to worldwide state of emergency. This is a one-off, and nothing more.”

“We must hurry, sir. I’ve already penetrated their satellites, and I’m very close to discovering the location of the control centre and turning off the wave. I need a boat to Q-Branch, bloody well now if possible,” Q stepped in. He fished his tablet out of the messenger bag again. Despite his friend’s warnings, he had left all essential programmes running.

He just needed to get past a few firewalls, and the job was done.

“It’s waiting at the pier,” said M, nodding, “and hurry up, for God’s sake. It’s only getting worse. The Prime Minister estimates thousands of people, if not more, have deceased, and he was talking about London only. We mustn’t forget the wave is still active in the rest of the world. Well done breaking its influence, by the way. Mr Holmes, please come with me.”

That was the last thing the head of SIS told them before Mycroft and he walked away toward his office.

Mallory picked up the phone yet again, with a terrified look on his face. When he rang off a few minutes later, he sat behind his desk and began to discuss all important political matters with Mycroft. They had to go through more than would be pleasant on Christmas Eve. 

001, 007, Q, and Moneypenny headed to the river, apace. Cold wind was blowing, and the sky looked as though it perhaps might start snowing.

They got on a motorboat. James assumed the position of the helmsman, since Eve had flown the helicopter, and it has been a long time since Mary did it. It was not a long travel to Q-Branch.

Getting on the ship, Q paid all attention to deciphering coded information from the satellite, and thus he nearly tripped over the edge and fell into the cold river. Luckily for him, it was just _nearly_ , and he could proceed with his work sans further inconvenience.

As the motorboat travelled in high speed, cold water spattered around and inside it—which was the only con of hiding in an underground brick bunker from WWII with no other way of access except sailing the river. It might have been a benefit in summer, but winter was an utterly different case. The weather was highly unpleasant even without water soaking through their coats and jackets.

Q did his best to protect his precious tablet from the splashes.

He remembered his promise to report to Merlin. He was about to make a phone call when he figured phoning was not really an option. A text had to do this time, due to the disfavour of current conditions and loud noise produced by the roaring engine. He opened another app and typed in the essential information only, with one more question.

They truly needed as many capable and, most importantly, available people willing to help, and MI6 suffered by a horrible lack thereof. Everyone was busy with _something_.

_Try to pick up the signal and extend it as you can. I believe you can get it to America, with the equipment you’ve got in Kingsman. I am searching for the source, close to shutting it down. Can you expend a few of your knights? –Q_

It was a risk, and he wasn’t even sure about the contents of the message—yet, it was too late now. He sent it straight to the IP address of one of Merlin’s computers instead of a mobile. It was faster when one knew the trick.

In an instant, Q received a message from Kingsman base: _I’ve four knights I’m willing to send away if you explain everything, right bloody now. –Merlin_

The man mimicked his signature, which was quite pleasing, but the rest of the reply was less good. Q wondered what to do—should he tell Merlin all, or find another way around without his help while keeping Six’s machinations and his own job secret?

First, he checked how his workers were doing with the anti-frequency. He always kept abreast of his subordinates’ doing; they still were his responsibility, in spite of possessing multiple PhDs or engineer’s degrees.

Then, he checked recordings from traffic cameras and people’s phones on TV and the Internet. He found out that the anti-wave was spreading across larger and larger areas. Most of Europe was awake, and his frequency has already reached Asian and Canadian borders. It has got to Africa as well. That was at least some good news.

He was satisfied enough to get back to Merlin’s question.

But first, he wanted to finish his important research on the wave’s epicentre, for he was certain he’ll have the position and identity of whoever was it holding their hand on the panel if he goes through just a few more lines of code. There must have been a mention of their name somewhere in the protocols.

And once he finds that out, he can provide the means the Double-Ohs and Knights of the Round Table required to stop them once and for all.

Q, at last, got to coordinates and a username, along with an address of the device in control of the satellites, among thousands of lines of code. It didn’t even take him that long.

It belonged among Richmond Valentine’s property, of course. Q was acknowledged with that. However, another name just a few lines lower did not ring any bells. That was the important one.

Although, when he thought about it a bit harder, he realised he maybe might have heard of it somewhere…

An Italian named Pietro Alberici was behind it all, behind the massacre. Q was certain he did know that name after all but couldn’t remember where from.

He opened another window. He typed in the name with other keywords he thought useful and appropriate for leading him to the one and only Pietro Alberici.

What the programme, which searched through all records on all networks, police and all government services included, had found honestly shocked him. Even MI6 had several extensive files about the Italian, all because of one simple reason.

He was a member of SPECTRE.

In fact, he was their new self-appointed boss. He had taken Blofeld’s position. The throne had been free when the man finally did his porridge (till the end of his days)—but it appeared it was free no longer. That was bad. That was exquisitely bad.

Q told the others nothing yet.

James kept peering into his tablet with one eye, but he didn’t understand the half of it anyway, so he stopped paying attention to it. Fortunately.

Q decided to answer Merlin truthfully. If the services were supposed to cooperate, Kingsmen needed to know all details, otherwise it would be rather pointless. Q began to type.

_We suffer from lack of agents, and therefore we need all available help. I am aware that you operate in secret, but right now, we’re all facing a crisis. We need allies everywhere possible. You at Kingsman are the world’s best chance on getting rid of the plague infecting the world, a hydra named SPECTRE. They’re the world’s most extensive and most powerful terrorist organisation. And yes, they are behind this all. Valentine was one of their members as well. I know the true extent of the knights’ abilities, and I believe that in alliance with the Secret Service’s elite operatives, they can make it. Better hurry up. –Q_

He hoped Merlin was smart enough to deduce that he worked at MI6, because involving that in the message would only cost him more needless explanations.

Q figured out the fact Valentine had been working for SPECTRE, an age-long adversary of all governments on Earth, from the rest of information he had found out about the organisation before. It was all rather obvious, really. Made sense.

There were certain connections between Silva, Blofeld, Valentine, and their portentous, megalomaniac behaviour typical for fools like them, in whose heads something went bonkers and convinced them that taking control over the world was the only right way of living.

To be honest, Q needed nothing from his lab now, but telling the others would only piss them off, so he better kept his mouth shut. He could arm the team with weapons necessary for a safe journey to and from Italy, since they were already heading to the lab.

They will, hopefully, despise of SPECTRE once and for all.

And of course, the command centre for V-Day related operations was the palace James had infiltrated in order to get information about Blofeld and the organisation itself a few months ago.

Which reminded him, he had to give Merlin the position of the epicentre. He constantly observed his moves on another third of the display, thanks to which he knew that four knights and the Quartermaster had assembled in the staffroom for a consultation.

Q was also acknowledged with the smart glasses. He decided to surprise them by sending the message to all of them at a time, if to save everyone a minute of time. He linked to their software and typed in a simple sentence all of them will understand.

_They are in Rome. –Q_

Then he sent one last message to Merlin only: _I’ll give you further details. Later. –Q_

He did not brag about the fact he had figured the basics of the technology that made the glasses so special, and that his own were enhanced in the exact same manner. Yet.

Q quickly brought his attention back to the tablet. Ten months ago, Kingsmen had stopped the wave after mere five minutes—now, people have been slaughtering each other for more than 15. He had to hurry. Countries furthest from the UK were still under the influence of uncontrollable violence.

The person on the other side was fighting back. Q needed to penetrate to the satellite’s controls to cut off the wave completely, and that person, whoever they might be, was making that hard.

He commenced the attack. It took him less than two minutes, given he had already got in once. Only a few more commands—and the satellite slowly began to float away from the circle. The screen connected to the electronic table displayed lower and lower numbers instead of the original and very necessary 100 per cent. SPECTRE are going to be furious.

Q smiled delightedly. His eyes sparkled with joy, as they always did when he accomplished an achievement as great as now. He fucking stopped a worldwide slaughter.

In the meantime, the motorboat had reached the quay, down which one needed to go if intending to visit Q’s laboratory. He wouldn’t have noticed that if the world round him hadn’t gone darker and smelled of algae a bit more than previously. He was staring at the tablet screen and typing even so.

Q returned to reality only when James waved his hand in front of his face and said, loud, “Earth to Q, we’ve reached our destination!”

The sudden presence of his partner’s deep voice in his ears made him start up a little. He hated when his mind wandered off to distant corners of cosmos and _someone_ woke him up like that.

The Quartermaster gathered his wits fast and got off the boat. Mary and Eve were waiting for him at the door. They were staring at him, and silently chatted about something that couldn’t reach his sensitive ears. He walked toward the door to the labyrinthine corridors, careful not to slip on the icy wood. It had actually happened once, and he had to work one-handed for three days. What a vexing experience.

He had not informed the team about anything yet—but when he sat at his desk with the laptop on, he considered it was probably the right time to begin. It was important not to keep all information to himself until it was too late.

Q looked at the three agents in front of him with a look bearing the weight of all he had learnt in such short period of time. He inhaled and exhaled deeply, mentally preparing for the words coming out.

The enumeration of unfavourable (and few favourable, too) news started simply: “SPECTRE is behind it all.”

The agents’ faces grew solemn. Weren’t they professional spies with such evolved self-control, they would have dropped their jaws. Well, except for James, who said, cynical, “We could have anticipated that.”

Q looked directly at him. “I suppose we could have. Either way, the situation is miserable as it is. During the flight and boat ride, I’ve managed to connect to one of Valentine’s satellites, which—as we know—helps with transmitting and amplifying the neurological wave affecting the human brain. That had enabled me to extract a name and location of the control centre in those rather disorganised amounts of data,” he paused. He looked at the others. “I’m afraid it is the Roman headquarters of the infamous organisation, the Cadence Palace.” 

Q threw a sympathetic look at James. “Oh no, not that place again,” grumbled the agent. He rolled his eyes, and his mood sunk even more if it were possible. The palace definitely belonged to the list of most hated places after what came about the last time he had paid it a visit. Nevertheless, it looked like coming there once more, and this time with the former 001, who hated him the same he hated Rome, by his side.

“Exactly that place, James. 007, 001, report to HQ instantly. I am sending you to Italy personally, together with 009 and 004,” the Quartermaster announced matter-of-factly as a certain, unchangeable issue. His expressing was none but professional.

He actually forgot it was Christmas. He had planned to spend with his partner and family, away from all work-related business; however, that had not exactly worked out. Saving the world always came first before anything.

The agents standing before his desk did not move.

There still was that one good thing he didn’t tell them about, too. Not all was black and white; there was a bigger picture to look at.

“I might also mention I’ve moved one of the satellites and temporarily blocked them from gaining control over each one of them. That means all people will have woken up by now, and the killing is, hopefully, over. I still must defend it nevertheless,” he said proudly but sounded rather exasperated by the last sentence. He had a lot of work to deal with, and he didn’t like it whatsoever.

It left the agents speechless. They certainly didn’t expect their Quartermaster to accomplish that as quickly—with regard to the long and difficult operation Kingsman had performed in order to do so the last time.

“Q, that—that’s seriously the best piece of news I’ve heard for all week!” exclaimed Eve when she came to senses, clearly relieved.

Hearing it was over, they as if forgot millions of people, maybe more, had inescapably died during the massacre.

The moment was ruined by Tanner’s and her mobiles ringing. When they pulled them out, they could see a single letter on the display: M. Their boss knew too. And so did the whole world, most probably. However, no one had any idea that it was one Andrew Holmes, the Quartermaster of MI6, who had saved them from becoming one of the numbers on TV screens and names engraved on stone graves. And no one ever will.

James remained silent, but he gave Q a wide, sincere smile, and walked to Q’s side of the desk. He grabbed the man’s shoulders and turned his face to him. Bending down, he took his face in the palms of his hands, and planted a kiss on his mouth without thinking. He didn’t care their colleagues were watching. He needed to show Q how proud of him he was.

Q didn’t expect the spontaneous manifestation of gratitude either—but that didn’t mean he would pull away, not return the kiss, not close his eyes and lose himself in it. It was no deep kiss, no tongues and teeth were involved—yet, Q’s cheeks and ears began to redden, and he could feel his heart beating fast. (Even James would think that making the kiss more than what it was inappropriate, since they still were at work, and Mary Watson, who wasn’t supposed to know of their romantic involvement at all, could see them. And she wasn’t the only one.)

Mary gave the pair of them a dry, disapproving glance. Eve and Bill were listening to Mallory, so they didn’t really pay attention to them.

James gathered enough control and dignity to pull away before he let his emotions and tight trousers take it too far and snogged Q for good five minutes right on the spot, hard. Q chased after his lips—but he couldn’t get what he wanted.

James leant in his ear and whispered, “Excellent work, love.” He straightened up but remained standing next to Q.

Q smiled unconsciously, darting his look at the computer and the trio in front of it. He forgot what he was about to say. He had to glance at James and the screen once more to recall what had been on his mind.

“Um, anyway, there is one more thing. Or two, actually. Firstly, you are cooperating with external reinforcements. And secondly, follow me; I’ll equip you with some special appurtenances you are surely in the requirement of.”

Saying the information, he was already getting up and leaving the lab for a storeroom next door. The agents followed him.

The Quartermaster disclosed all details about the cooperation with the Kingsman secret service on the way. As soon as they were all equipped with adequate arms and tools and headed back to HQ, he returned to his laptop sitting on the desk. Now, he could finally finalise the Kingsman-concerning affairs.

He checked BBC News and the Internet for updates. The media overflowed with horrific pictures and statistics, scaring the shit out of people of the world (as media always tended to), but Q also learnt all humans were themselves again. There was at least a tiny bit of positivity amongst all the nightmares.

 

001 and 007 were forced to bury the hatchet and open up to professionalism. One last common mission was awaiting them.

Two more agents—the only ones who were not busy with cleaning the mess in London—joined them in M’s office. The quartet heard out a full report on the task ahead of them. Mycroft was still sitting in that armchair. He was holding a cut glass of scotch, of which he took a sip occasionally. He listened but kept his mouth shut for all the time, albeit it was his brother’s partner, his cousin’s partner, and the wife of his other brother’s best friend standing there, listening to orders that might very easily be the last thing they were ever going to hear coming out of M’s mouth.

He was sending them on a highly dangerous mission. They were well aware of it.

It was logical they had assigned 009 to dismantle SPECTRE and Valentine’s network. He knew it all, knew the people, their machinations. And he knew Kingsman agents, although the relations between him and them weren’t exactly peachy. He had to forget about that, and about the unavoidable meeting with Eggsy and Roxy, the two young agents who could have been his friends if they had met under different circumstances. Instead, he pictured a pleasant memory of the sweet morning spent with his amazing boyfriend Danny.

And 004? She was one of the best agents Six had. Stunningly beautiful, highly intelligent, cunning, resourceful, and strong, among other things. If someone had the bollocks to burst into SPECTRE’s headquarters, fight an impossible battle with fifty fully armed men, and win, it was she.

M informed them of the new head of SPECTRE. He gave them precise orders on how to proceed. He threatened that if they fail to do away with the SPECTRE affair once and for all, he will dismiss all of them without notice. No one knew whether he was joking or not. It was inadvisable to mess with Gareth Mallory, though. All Double-Ohs should better be mindful of his warnings.

They already were on the way to the roof mere three minutes after entering the office.

The fastest way to Rome was flying in a helicopter. Airports won’t convey passengers for next few days, and wasting time on the roads would be as efficient as trying to drive through Regent Street in the course of the November festivals. The very same chopper they had arrived in waited on the spot which Eve had landed it on.

Bond, Watson, Turner, and Allison got in. 007 took charge of the cockpit sans any democratic vote right away. Being in charge was a part of his nature, and no one would deny him the chance, so there was nothing to argue about.

In a few seconds, the vehicle took off. James headed for Italy.

 

For the entire duration of the flight, he was chatting with agent Turner, who sat next to him in the position of a co-pilot, about faking their own death, living with their partners (who happened to be cousins), or the horrific event they both faced twice in one year.

Their small talk slightly agitated the agents in the back, but the women tried not to mind them. They were quiet, mostly.  

Q was on the comms continuously. He heard every word they said. However, he tried not to mind them too, and channelled his concentration into holding the satellite in his power. He had to deflect the terrorists’ attacks and impede the process of renewing the transmittal over and over again, for they won’t cease to attempt to destroy the world after one small failure.

Oh, what an exigent day it was going to be. And he didn’t even remember to worry about his cats.  

Moneypenny had made him a strong cup of Earl Grey. She gave him a sympathetic smile and wished him good luck and strong nerves, because he was definitely going to need it. Q’s eyes locked with hers as she squeezed his shoulder in an assuring manner. Then she returned to HQ.

M needed her more than he, after all.

Q sipped at the hot liquid in his favourite Scrabble mug. He put it on the table, cracked his knuckles, and switched off all channels connecting him to the helicopter. When he made sure he truly was alone in the lab, he reached for the left temple of his spectacles. There was a little button hidden on it.

Having pressed it, five figures in hazy green light appeared in front of him, one girl and four men sitting at a table.

All of them turned their heads to Q. Their stiffened faces made it rather clear they were shocked. And really, no one could blame them for it when a man they’ve never seen before had projected himself in the boardroom right in the middle of an important discussion.

“Hello, lady and gentlemen. Shall we begin?” 


	7. Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is entirely kingsman point of view. hartwin ahead ayyyy
> 
> also, sherlock season 4 is out, and it revealed few things from the past. i changed the child's name to rosamund, but that's it. all of this stays the way it is. (but it turns out i wasn't that off with mary, eh?) and yes, it ruined me, thank you very much.

Percival shot a disapproving glance at Merlin. The bald Quartermaster crashed the edge of the mahogany table with his taut palms. His lips were pressed together, and the frown wrinkling his brow could not be any deeper. The interactive clipboard lay in front of him, transmitting all kinds of statistics and charts to the screen on the wall.

The man’s exasperation forbade him to sit and stay still. At the moment, Percival was leaning against the back of a chair right next to Lancelot. His face as if reflected Merlin’s. The discussion did not go according to his notion whatsoever.

“We cannot send _all_ of our available agents to Rome,” he noted. “That would be a suicide, regardless of the knights’ training and capacities, and you know it, Arthur.”  

The man in question was not particularly thrilled about the cooperation with the Double-Oh Programme agents. He was perfectly familiar with their methods of operation and principles, even if they could not say the same. They were all but in accordance with Kingsman’s.

The pointless conversation was no less exhausting to him than to the others; yet it also had the opposite effect of evoking the need to bang his fist on the table, get up, and go hole up in one of the private quarters where he could lose his glasses and lie down on a divan to unwind. He has not had a moment of peace within past ten months. The unavoidable promotion to the post of Arthur has not made it any easier – and he did not speak of the Kentucky incident and months of rehabilitation.

Even the mere thought of his time in America made the scar above his left eye sting. But frankly, he should be glad its ability to see was not lost forever.

“If I recall it correctly—and I am not a senile old man yet, mind—two of our youngest assets had handled the task with bravura, while one of them was in fact _not_ an agent,” Harry turned his head to Eggsy, who sat on his right; his expression remained painfully even to the smile in his eyes, “only with the help of our Merlin. Therefore I suggest that Galahad and Lancelot engage again. As Percival pointed out, Kingsman cannot afford to spare more agents. The re-launch of V-Day has cost us nearly a half of our external operatives already.”

Merlin intended to protest. Andrew—Q, he corrected himself—had expressly said—  

His face froze. The agents’ expressions stiffened in motion, mouths open and eyes wide. They all turned their gazes to the far end of the table.

The glasses have activated on remote command. A green hologram of a man with an unfamiliar face appeared at the table. He was wearing a pair of spectacles analogous to theirs; his hair was dark brown and slightly dishevelled; the warm parka he was wrapped in suggested he has just returned from the cold outside. He could have been round thirty years old, not more than that.

He propped up his chin on clasped hands with a complacent smirk they have seen somewhere before. That man reminded them of someone, yet they could not quite place the face anywhere.

He said, “Hello, lady and gentlemen. Shall we begin?”

Oh. Q. What is he going to do next, teleport right to the middle of the conference room?

When no one said nothing and continued to stare, he cleared his throat. “My name is Andrew Holmes, the Quartermaster of MI6. I surmise my counterpart has mentioned yours truly before, and I sincerely hope he has clarified how things are, because the contrary would be very unfortunate,” he continued brazenly, as though he belonged there all along.

Harry spoke, still incredulous. “Yes, he has.”

“Lovely. Then I suggest you move to the hangar with dispatch before it’s too late. Planet Earth has no time to spare.”

He did not like the fact this—this daring young man invaded their meeting like that. Kingsman was a _secret service_ , after all, and MI6 have sworn to stay out of their business. However… this was a case of emergency, a sui generis exception. Despite any dislike for Holmes’ manners, Harry had to admit he was correct.

He did not question his authority or orders. Everyone powerful with access to most of the world’s information has heard of Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes at some point (and few chosen ones even of the fourth sibling; not Kingsmen, though), and if what Merlin had told them were true, they could trust him at least on this.

Arthur got up from his chair and ordered Eggsy and Roxy to follow suit. Percival was staying in HQ with Merlin, as said before. The discussion was not over yet, but he was the boss, and this was war. Take all previous regulations as granted.

What was not a regulation, however, was the fact Arthur was flying to Italy with the young agents as well. But he wasn’t going to argue with them about his health and alike bollocks. He’s going. That’s it.

Merlin drew himself up. With a petulant scowl, he watched the knights walk out of the door. They stayed connected through the comms.

He thought he could have a word with Q alone, but to his surprise, the brunet had somehow managed to detach his hologram and allowed it to act upon his commands. Green, hazy Q got up (coming right through the furniture) and followed the agents outside. As long as the glasses were on, they would be able to see him.

Not even he had thought of that function. Damn. Andrew truly was extraordinarily resourceful.

 

Roxy glanced at Q bitterly and disapprovingly from behind the frame of her glasses. Her eyes screamed _I don’t trust you. Yet._ She strongly reminded him of Mary Watson, 001.

“I am sending you the precise coordinates of SPECTRE’s headquarters. You should see the file on your glasses… right about now,” Q notified the agents, typing on his keyboard. He had put his legs up on the desk and laid the keyboard on his thighs—it was more comfortable for longer work. Holographic Q trod behind the triad.

“Affirmative,” said Harry and downloaded the data to memory. They were approaching the hangar full of resting cars, aeroplanes, helicopters, and other clever vehicles for various mission purposes quickly.

They came by one of many dressing rooms, where they put on thick coats made of the same bulletproof and fireproof material as their suits. Those were a necessary part of equipment these days, no matter where the agents needed to travel; it was December and three degrees Celsius.

“I think I don’t have to remind you that laying low and blending with the crowd is substantial to success,” Q stepped in again after few minutes of silence. He (the hologram) frowned and focused his gaze on something invisible to them.

He had, apparently, declared himself the chief of this mission, and did not care who was or was not his agent. All spies the same.

“Just remember landing the helicopter short way off the HQ will put you all in danger, but landing on SPECTRE’s backyard would be exceedingly worse. I wish I could say I’m exaggerating, but they monitor every move of every human being, especially now. Two whirlybirds would bring too much attention.”

Q received few responses, mostly nods and eye-rolls from the youngest as they trotted toward the enormous garage. When he sighted the plentiful, staggering number of all kinds of means of transport, his heart exulted at it—of envy, mostly. If he had that in Q-Branch… dream come true, really.

 

Agent Turner had, of course, told him about the stock. He had been quite excited about it, Q had observed. He knew how much Q loved machines and engines and vehicles, particularly those technically enhanced. Yet, seeing it with his own eyes—or through glasses—was an utterly different case. He could not deny himself a silent _wow_ that escaped his lips.

He generally coveted Kingsman their dart watches, shocking signet ring, gun-and-shield umbrella, and other toys of the sort. Q had his own, but these were simply more advanced.

He had actually started working on a few prototypes; though, that was the stage the inventions remained in, because he had come to a conclusion the time and money spent on research and development of the equipment in no way equalled the outcome. The Double-Ohs, with the exception being only very few of them, were too irresponsible to receive such gifts.

 

Regardless of Q’s wish to go down there and take a look at the vehicles, if virtually, he had to report to the aforementioned irresponsible Double-Ohs. His hologram disappeared for a moment. The Kingsmen failed to notice.

They ran down the stairs and continued toward the helicopters. After ten months, Harry’s physical condition neared its former shape; he did not lose his breath while running anymore.

Doctors have put him on yearlong mandatory rest and suspended him from active duty, but this mission was above everything. It was a top priority. He wouldn’t fear to say the planet required him and his capacities.

Besides, Eggsy has proven to be a _significant_ help with his recuperation and rehabilitation.

Harry got to the helicopter first. He opened the door on the pilot’s side, ready to climb in. Yet suddenly, he felt his young protégé, and also a partner in life, grab him by his arm and stop him from moving. One of his legs was on the step, but the other still touched the ground. He had quick reflexes.

“Harry, you can’t go to Italy with us. It’s a too big risk, and you bloody well know it.”

The older man turned his head and gazed into Eggsy’s beautiful green eyes. Deep concern fighting flashes of sincere tenderness like in a storm reflected in them.

“Don’t worry, dear. I am not old enough not to handle a regular mission on stopping a terrorist group with the assistance of six other agents yet,” he smiled. “I can cope with this task just as I’ve been coping for all those years in active service—which is excellently—and one scar on my eye that is nothing more than a constant reminder of the unavoidable and unforgettable past does not make the slightest of changes on that, Eggsy.”

There perhaps was a smile across his lips, but he spoke matter-of-factly and resolutely. He made it clear there was no point in arguing with him about that particular issue. His arguments were solid. Eggsy concluded he was nothing else but right and loosened the grasp on his arm.

Nonetheless, he fully realised this was not a regular mission. He was aware of the danger that impended. If SPECTRE indeed were who Merlin had described them as, they all were in deep shit. There was no polite way of depicting the circumstances.

Harry got in the helicopter. Eggsy walked around it and sat down next to him.

“I’ve never said you were old, love. I’d never say that. Cos you’re not, do you understand? You’re perfect just the way you are,” he assured him sotto voce, and when he saw another short smile brightening Harry’s face, he pressed a brief, chaste kiss on it. He fastened his seatbelt.

Roxy was quite fed up with those two. Getting in, she rolled her eyes at her friends and colleagues. They’d never stop being sickeningly smitten with each other ever since Harry’s return among the living. It was ridiculous—but it also hurt. Particularly when she knew Merlin wouldn’t even _look_ at her.

She knew she was just being silly. Merlin was her friend and handler, and quite oblivious to any signals she might have or not have been intentionally sending him. Yet anyway, she still _hoped,_ not knowing what for.

And she had to forget about the lovebirds in the front seats. That wasn’t easy.

“Can we just stop wasting precious time and go?” Roxy cocked an eyebrow.

Harry responded to Lancelot’s bitter taunt with a single word on the radio. “Merlin?”

Upon the spur, the garage’s sliding roof slowly opened. When the gap was wide enough for a helicopter to fly through, Arthur started it up and lifted off. He displayed the coordinates from Q again and entered the data to the sat nav.

“Thank you, Merlin.”

“‘Course. And remember I’ll kill you if you dare to die.”

Harry and the machine were gone from the Quartermaster’s sight before long. Merlin located its position on radar and watched the whole journey in the corner of his eye.

 

With all the fuss going on, the agents had completely forgotten about Q, so when his green hologram (wearing a jumper and looking slightly more tired than before) materialised on the empty seat next to Roxy, they all startled at him, even if they wouldn’t admit so.

The girl gasped, despite her self-control, “Gosh, you’ve scared me, Mr Holmes! I didn’t expect you to show up again.”

He turned his holographic head to her. “I am sorry for that,” Q said sincerely. “I had to return to my agents for a moment.” He paused, and his expression switched between pondering and shining with an excellent idea he has just got in seconds. “I think I can interconnect all of us and therefore prevent even more confusion.”

The signal momentarily intermitted as he fiddled with the settings. He never disappeared entirely, though. His hologram has somehow changed into the basic setting, so they could see what he was doing.

Q flitted between two computers. His thin fingers ceaselessly typed away on the keyboard. He narrowed his eyes and licked his lips, clearly focusing on the screens. What they displayed remained hidden to the Kingsmen’s sight. Then he reclined against his chair and took a sip of something—they all took him for a typical Englishman who’d only drink black tea with milk—from a white mug. The job was done.

“Everyone can hear me now, even Kingsman base,” he cleared his throat. “As you were previously told, I’ve disconnected the main satellite and broken the circle, and thus disabled transmission of the neuro-wave. However, SPECTRE don’t cease to try restoring it through the touch screen table inside their base, Palazzo Cadenza.” Melancholy crossed his countenance. Old memories, no doubt. “I’ve scanned the whole building. It is to be found in the boardroom in the ground floor. I could count 62 people, usually wealthy entities involved with the mob, all armed from head to toe—but you, seven top-ranking operatives, are as well. We have faith in you till the end, with all we can offer, so help you God to balls this mission up. Keep that in mind. I will probably show up and give you updates as you go along, so don’t get frightened again, I am no little green man—wait, actually, I am. Quartermaster’s out.”

Q snickered on his own wordplay. With that image, the hologram glimmered, and then it vanished as he reached for the button on his spectacles. Although, he remained on the comms, so he could note it would all be easier if the Double-Ohs had the same glasses as Kingsmen before he went silent for good.

Roxanne did not start to trust the eccentric young man with her life as of yet, since he worked for the British government, but he was well-informed, dexterous, and ambitious and knew what he was doing—rather like Merlin—which was sufficient for her not to condemn his actions and orders in entirety. She quit thinking of him and reoriented on the tactics and strategy she was to use against her enemies instead.

Eggsy tittered at the joke that wasn’t funny at all, to ease the oppressing mood spreading from within all of them and depressing thoughts creeping into his mind. It was better not to think of the highly unfavourable odds they faced—but it was impossible.

He looked at Roxy and gave her a short nod, a sign that everything is going to be alright. Though, he was the one who needed an assurance more than she did. Not that he would not have faith they can defeat 62 sodding armed men: back then in Russia, he and Merlin had killed over twice the number. But he did not have faith all of them can get out of there alive. _Everything_ played into SPECTRE’s hands.

He wanted to remember this last peaceful moment. He wanted to remember his best friend’s concentrated face, her smile, her light brown hair, the black coat and red scarf she was wearing.

He wanted to remember Harry, his Harry. His gaze flew the distance between Roxy and him. Seeing the man, he really, really tried not to think of the possibility that they—or worse, one of them—might not come back to London.

He wanted to remember his gelled, dark hair, how hot and smartarse he looked in his Kingsman glasses, that scar above his eye. It was Valentine’s reminder to never give up and always keep fighting. For him, for vengeance, for love.

He wanted to remember the sad smile that accentuated the wrinkles round his eyes but in a beautiful way, his bespoke suits, fancy accent, brown irises of his eyes, lips he has kissed a thousand times, all those casual days spent together, walks with JB, dinners, missions, night full of passion.

The image of his partner sitting in the helicopter’s cockpit, elegant hands on the buttons and lever, impressed itself on Eggsy’s mind. He did not want to ever forget it, this instant, or to ever lose him. He was aware that was coming one day—but just. Not. Today. It was too bloody soon!

A tear rolled down his cheek. He could not help it. How could he.

Harry sensed what he was thinking of. He tore his gaze away from the cloudy sky round him and directed it at Eggsy, piloting be damned for a while. It was apparent he was as frightened as Eggsy was, for the first time ever. It was different from all of the countless missions he had been sent on, for this time, he had something to lose.

Eggsy laid his hand on Harry’s. He, nevertheless, slipped out of his hold and wiped away the tear on his face. Eggsy leant into the touch.

He did not care Merlin was listening and Roxy could see them, despite the fact she attempted the contrary. It didn’t matter.

He and Harry, they have never said those three powerful words to each other. They knew. But later might very well be too late. “I love you, Harry Hart. To death.”

It was just a saying, but for people as them, spies, it meant more. It was literal. They have already been there once, and it was perfectly enough, thanks very much.

“I love you too,” said his partner, “Gary.”

(If they will continue to be a pair of lovesick puppies for any longer, if for a good reason, she could see for herself and feared what might occur as well, Roxy is going to throw eggnog and two gingerbread men she had eaten at home up right on Q’s hologram’s seat.)

Eggsy closed the gap between them; Roxy, Merlin, and all of SPECTRE can go screw themselves. He pressed his lips on Harry’s eagerly, urgently, ardently as though it were the last time, because it could have been. Only God knows the tangled strings of past, present, and future well enough to read them and determine what is going to be.

Harry lost himself in the endless kiss, sensed only Eggsy’s avid lips and tears that did not cease to flow down his cheeks.

They’d never part—if it weren’t for Merlin and his reminder to change the course (it was embarrassing, but he had to step in if he didn’t want to find his agents in Spain instead of Italy).

Eggsy was the only thing that could leave Harry breathless.

He was reluctant to turn is attention to piloting the helicopter and cruel reality. They sustained height; that was good. Nothing else needed. It will not fly any faster anyway.

Harry rested his forehead and nose against the other man’s. He interwove the fingers oh his free hand with his. They stayed in that position for a while more. The situation resembled a scene in some kind of bittersweet Hollywood film.

They even felt like the protagonists of one. And as it always works in films, there is an opponent to the main character. Complex plot, fighting the enemy, happy ending. But this wasn’t that kind of film. And their enemy was too big and too powerful, as well as bloody far away.

They were playing for time. Q was playing for time.

“I love you,” Eggsy said once more. “No matter what.”

“I love you. No matter what.” Harry’s voice cracked.

The pair pulled away from each other with a skip of heartbeat. They settled in their seats, shifting a bit uncomfortably because nothing was comfortable anymore, nothing was the same. But there was a route to focus on and clouds to count in one’s mind to pass the time and the anxiety.

Merlin would shower them with profanities and turn the helicopter himself if they didn’t do it, in any case.

Have they not been in the situation they have been in, the view sprawling before them would be truly astonishing. Europe has always been beautiful from bird’s eye view.

The trio said their mental goodbyes to the continent.

They wished that were superfluous. They prayed for the mission not to be their last.

Even if it were, this was about saving the Earth and all of humanity. Such thought could soothe their souls by a bit; knowing more than ever before was at stake could help them come to terms with whatever may happen more easily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i didn't mean to make it so sad
> 
> and no, i wasn't crying writing this


	8. Six

_“Estimated time of arrival four minutes,”_ Q heard agent Hart’s silky voice in his ear. He took a deep breath. A sip of the Earl Grey from Eve helped him with concentration, albeit he could no longer call it warm. He continued in the unceasing and hard resistance to a rather talented hacker on SPECTRE’s side.

He checked on the CCTV cameras when he had a second to spare. The Double-Ohs were already in position and looked round the premises. James had the advantage of knowing about the back door guarded only by two men with pistols.

That was their entrance.

He leant against the wall that hid him from the guards’ sight, holding a Walther PPK/S with a silencer on. He waited for further directions from Q—truth be told, this was probably the only time he behaved and listened to him. 001 and 004 were crouching behind a black car parked at the palace’s front entrance. The women tried hard not to mind the commotion round them.

009, agent Turner, simply walked in. His cover as Valentine’s flunkey and a hypothetical member of the organisation has not been blown (yet), so if he had his ring, he had free access to all parts of the palace.

With all caution, he scanned the building. He mapped the situation and distribution of men and women inside the control room. There were 47 of them, and he concluded the others were scattered round the other rooms and corridors. He reported everything to Q.

“Go and stand on one of the balconies and keep observing, 009,” Q told him. He’d have excellent view of the action downstairs. “007, go inside,” he said to his partner with all professionalism and composure in his voice. His Quartermaster-of-MI6 voice. “Try not to catch their attention, and be careful. You have M’s permission to kill anyone who gets in your way—but for God’s sake, replace the magazine when you run out of ammunition, _don’t_ throw the Walther away! At least this time.”

He redirected his attention to the other screen with the satellite’s data shining in bright pink and purple on it. Still, he managed to keep an eye on the agents _while_ breaking security measures that somehow impeded him from gaining full control over the whole circle.

 _“What will I get if I don’t do that?”_ teased James. He silently sneaked to the entry.

Q could hear few muffled gunshots, and a moment later, Bond was inside. He kicked the door shut behind him and headed straight ahead the passage. He was familiar with the route.

“What you _won’t_ get, 007, is a lecture on good manners from both M and me and a pile of papers to fill. What you _will_ get is up to you.” He might regret that later—if there is a later.

There should be no time for such negative thoughts, yet they still crept on his mind. It was unavoidable, really.

But Q knew his agents, and he had to have faith in their abilities just as any other time he has sat on comms during a difficult mission. He had to have faith they and the Kingsmen can get through it. He, and the rest of the world, had no other option. And if—if they dare not to come back, he will personally kill them once more.

 _“A recipe for those biscuits and you’ll show me your old room?”_ James laughed. He moved ahead. There was another assassin. He put up a short fight, but James was quicker. Soon, his blood covered the walls, and he lay on the ground, dead.

What Q had expected was some sort of an acerbic, backhanded remark about a round of breathtaking, euphoric shag on the floor in his lab, certainly not that. He would never imagine James asking for such an odd request, even if it was just a joke.

He had to smile. Perhaps that was the purpose.

“You’ll come back to me with the gun in perfect health and condition, and I’ll make love to you right there on my bed.”

After all, those witty comments were the last thing that still distantly resembled the originally peaceful Christmassy atmosphere—and only Lord knows, it could have been the last thing they had. They could ease the tension that was _audible_ on the comms.

Q really tried not to think of the depressing tragedy in the air, but it was bloody impossible.

He stopped caring about the fact others could hear them long ago. They may roll their eyes as hard as they want to. He had witnessed many highly unprofessional conversations from his agents before, too.

 _“I take you up on it, love,”_ replied James seriously. He arrived at the balconies.

 

007 hesitated. Should he position himself in one of them or wait, considering what had happened the last time? He hoped no one had heard gunfire and alarmed their comrades.

He sneaked in, quiet and careful. He knew in whose company he was. He remained in the shadow.

James’ eyes flitted from one person to another. He counted the number of heads and tried to deduce as much as he could by mere sight. Some faces looked familiar. One of them in particular: Alex Turner was standing in a balcony on the opposite side of the chamber. He gave him a short nod.

 _Everything under control_ , he gestured. James turned his head. The large touch screen table shone like a star in the black universe. There were three men in dark suits standing at it as planets orbiting the star, guns undoubtedly resting beneath the jackets.

The boss—a lean, wrinkled, white-haired old man in a striped suit—stood among his people and bellowed some undoubtedly unpleasant Italian words at them.

At first sight, he would appear harmless, but judging by the reserved approach and respect in the men’s stance, he was the one to fear most of all.

 

“Stay in position and monitor every each of their moves; that applies to you too, 001 and 004. The knights are to arrive in two minutes, and then the real pandemonium will begin. They will provide diversion, which will be your chance. You have to get to the table and annihilate it at all costs. Smash it up, empty the magazine in it, do anything you Double-Ohs are excellent at. The neuro-wave can never work again if the table doesn’t work,” Q practically shouted at the agents. Nonetheless, his mind was someplace else. He was slowly losing the control over the satellites, and that frustrated him deeply.

He reactivated his glasses. His green hologram materialised on the empty seat in Kingsman’s helicopter, for the last time. The MI6 agents could still hear him too.

None of the agents was scared by his sudden appearance anymore, or at least they did not show it.

“Do you know your orders and abilities?” he asked, probably for the hundredth time. He truly wanted to be sure they know what they’re doing. This was SPECTRE, the biggest fish in the ocean. In comparison to all of them, Valentine would be a tiny clownfish (or a porcupine fish, peaceful at first sight but highly dangerous with its spines). Most of them actually enjoyed killing inconvenient people, contrary to the American who could not bear the sight of his own blood.

All three of them nodded in unison.

“Lovely. I trust you know what you’re going into, because once you’re inside, there is no way back. Good news is that there only are 58 men left standing, but the bad news is that they are close to restoring the wave. May the odds be ever in your favour.” Q paused. For a second, his gaze wandered far away. “Yours too, Double-Ohs.”

He disconnected from the glasses; the hologram disappeared. He stayed on the comms, though, so he could hear Eggsy ask if he’d really quoted _The Hunger Games_. (He had. On purpose.)

If they shall come back in safe and sound, they cannot get by without the odds in their favour—but so far, they were against them. It was a huge risk only to walk through the door, which Q and all of MI6 fully realised. Weren’t the agents the best of the elite (haha, absolutely), it would be a definite suicide. Such line-up ensured that perhaps most of them would survive.

Perhaps. That was not a very promising word.

This Christmas had first looked like the best Christmas Q has ever had. He had had no idea how wrong he had been.

He knew why he hated the holidays. Something _always_ had to come about. Why did bad guys always chose the time of peace, happiness, and family reunions to be the perfect time to take over the world?

Moreover, he had a partner and family to worry about!

Nevertheless, his job did not allow him to get too stressed out. Q could not let his feelings overshadow his objective judgment. He took another sip of the tea and centred his thoughts on code. Composure and self-command circulated through his body.

He as though switched off. He got into some sort of trance, and perceived only his fingertips hitting the keys of his keyboard and the quiet hum of central heating.

In a minute, Harry Hart informed him of their arrival. He said the helicopter had landed approximately one kilometre from SPECTRE headquarters. Q peered at a map on another screen—the big red dot with the agents’ codenames separated in three smaller ones moving toward the building apace. Too fast to be walking or running.

Those sly foxes stole a poor fellow’s car. The fact they were not so different from his agents after all was the least of his problems.

 

A hotwired blue Renault approached the base; it was probably the only functional vehicle in the perimeter. Harry parked it near the black one with bullet holes and missing rear-view mirror the Queen and Country’s agents were still hiding behind.

With all elegance, two well-groomed men in dark grey coats, one younger and one older, got out of it. A young, brown-haired woman in similarly expensive clothes followed suit. She pulled a pistol out of her shoulder holster.

Their gazes were stern and pace quick. They recognised 001 and 004 immediately.

Chaos was slowly relenting. Everyone has gained consciousness already. Some of them were still confusedly running about and yelling words in Italian, shaken from what they had done to their friends, families, or fellow citizens.

“Hello, beauties,” said the young agent—Gary Unwin, Mary remembered—and gave them a smile. His eyes had a lively spark one wouldn’t expect to see on such day in them. All three of them crouched next to the Double-Ohs.

Were the gloomy reflections gone from his mind, or was he just so good at pretence? (Probably the latter. He was a _spy_.)

“001,” Mary introduced herself dryly. No need for full names. She cocked her head in the other woman’s direction. “This is 004.”

Her eyes, equally stern to theirs, inspected the newcomers more closely.

“The pleasure is all ours,” said Harry before he uttered what was very unlike him, “but enough civilities, we have no time. Move your arses.”

At least he could not say he was late—the whole world was, by that time.

Q spoke one simple word that said all, _“Go.”_

Harry squeezed Eggsy’s hand. They communicated wordlessly. The private message only they could understand was unequivocal.

The five agents darted forwards. They stormed into the palace straight through the front door blatantly. Without the slightest of problems, they fought their way through three brawny, tenacious bodyguards patrolling the entrance. However, that was just a warm-up for what was coming next.

Once the first gunshots cut through the air, whispers and screams joined the cacophony. All hands were on guns, and chairs shifted around the chamber with careless, creaky noises. Bond and Turner could take advantage of the general mayhem and the men’s momentary unpreparedness.

The first hit was easy. Bond aimed at a thickset, balding south European and ran a bullet through his head. He evaded another man’s punch—they knew about him by then. He did not even have time to wipe the spray of blood off his face.

He had quite a hard time trying not to get shot, truth be told. It was a three-on-one combat, and his opponents were in their game. Two attempted to shoot him dead, and the third one was strangling him with his strong arm. He had to keep moving and shake him off at the same time.

James kicked the man’s shin while aiming for his groynes with his elbow. He was running out breath. He had to free himself about—now. He hazarded letting go of the arm round his neck in order to draw a knife out of his coat’s pocket.

It quickly dug into the attacker’s forearm, and he let out a wail. He was forced to let go. James concentrated on the other two.

 

Agent Turner was not doing any better. He gave himself away the second he shot one of his alleged SPECTRE allies dead.

Five heavily armed men with a cross frown on their faces were after him. They did not seem to give up after one hard punch.

 

004, followed by Arthur and Galahad at her heels, burst into the room. 001 and Lancelot were soon to follow them.

Seeing the massacre equal to the slaughter outside—if not worse; it was alarmingly safe to say the odds were against them all—they reckoned they would be the World’s Luckiest Person prize winners if they get out of there in one piece and conscious.

Trained assassins and mobsters bearing all imaginable sorts of weaponry surrounded them, and then struck. Bullets and knives flew through the air drenched with shouts and moans.   

The agents took their umbrella shields, Bo sticks, personalised guns, and any other of Q and Merlin’s priced equipment they had got for the purposes of self-defence. Thank God for the bulletproof suits, really.

The Double-Ohs, alas, weren’t as lucky to have one.

 

The agents focused on the table that stood on the other side of the chamber, under siege of Alberici’s bodyguards and technicians.

 _“If you succeed in this mission, I am inviting you and your friends to a Christmas dinner at our place, I swear to God,”_ Q encouraged the group. However, his voice trembled with desperation.

“Alright, at least we’ve something to look forward to,” replied Galahad and jumped in the air. He knocked a terrifying hunk down with his legs and immediately ran a bullet through his forehead. “Christmas dinner with MI6.”

He turned 180 degrees to shoot a man who had hit his back three times, which had damaged the grey coat he was wearing. Eggsy loved his coat. It was a gift from Harry.

He got rid of him as well, but more and more men surged at him from all sides if they weren’t busy enough fighting Roxy or 001. He couldn’t see Harry anywhere.

Eggsy took a deep breath. He ducked to dodge few rounds from a submachine gun aimed at his head. He grabbed the other end of his umbrella and tripped a woman up with the handle, then fired a round back.

He opened the umbrella to provide cover. He was in a perfect position to shoot the woman, who was on her feet again, with a poison dart from his watch.

There was no place for mercy with people as her or the man behind him, whom he has just killed.

Yet, the numbers of adversaries he and his colleagues had to defeat was not lowering whatsoever. On the contrary, it felt as though they kept materialising inside the room out of the blue. There were many more than just fifty people in there.

“Q?” he asked for an explanation in between strikes and dodges. He did not have time for more words—but Q would surely get it nonetheless.

 _“One of the palace’s undeniable qualities is vast underground premises that are somehow, and very conveniently, shaded from thermal imaging. I assume over hundred more operatives are hiding down there.”_ The Quartermaster typed rapidly. He uttered a curse, as he did not find a way to detect how many persons are still down there. _“And to be completely honest, we’ve never counted up the final number of SPECTRE affiliates. There might as well be a hundred more of them.”_

 

Eggsy did not say a word, and turned the radio off. Q cursed again. He wished he had abilities like the Flash at that moment, because even if he typed the fastest he could, it was not enough.

Besides, SPECTRE did not cease to try to regain control of the satellites. He was fighting a battle on his computer almost as challenging and dangerous as the fight his agents were putting up with in Rome. 

He allowed himself a peek at the balcony cameras. 009 had vanished, and James was on his own. He was perfectly skilled, but even the best of fighters does not stand many chances against twenty men with equivalent stamina and equipment.

Q’s eyes darted elsewhere.

A man pushed Roxy into the corner. She would have been killed had 004 not shot the assailant in the last second. But then another appeared, and hit Scarlet in the head with a metal bar. She collapsed on the floor. Eggsy caught it in the face; blood escaped his nose and lower lip.

 

They were all fighting bravely. Eggsy has destroyed eight people, nine for Mary. She and Galahad got on best of them all, as to hits got and delivered, though even they cannot last forever.

The situation looked anything but promising.

More gunmen emerged from somewhere in the basement.

No one has even thought of a chance to approach the control table.


	9. Seven

The agents did not give up. They were fighting fiercely and honourably.

Eggsy shot three men dead while battling two others. The act had lured them away from the paralysed SIS agent, who could stand up and start at her opponents with verve more intense than before. She was cross. No man can take Scarlet Allison down, ever.

There was a bloodstain on her temple. Scarlet wiped it off. She tucked an unruly strand of her raven hair behind her ear and picked up the very metal bar that had hit her from a dead man’s hands. Only a few hard kicks and a final bash in the chest were enough to eliminate a young but tenacious terrorist attacking her.

Roxy extricated herself from the tricky situation in the corner. She managed to dispose of six men standing in the way to the long wooden table. It had cost her most of the cartridge in her pistol, but she still had the watch and her own fists.

On the other side of the table was their target—the control panel with a touch screen shining with all shades of red. It was surrounded by Alberici’s henchmen, and it yelled SECURITY BREACH all over the screen. That was the doing of Q and his skilful fingers.

Roxy jumped in the air. The poisonous blade in her shoe cut the face of a man dumb enough to try and fire a gun at her. Blood squirted out of his cheek and stuck to another man’s jacket. He fell down. Lancelot saw him off this world with a shot.

That had been her last round. She snatched the pistol from the dead man. Rapidly, she checked the magazine and saw it was half-full. Excellent. She ran forward and got rid of a brawny man giving 004 a hard time.

Shooting and unceasing screams of fortitude but also death echoed in the room. Sometimes, one could hear Italian curses and orders from the furious boss, too.

That meant Q and his Scottish counterpart spared no effort to keep the satellites apart at all costs.

Both men were silent. The only sound audible in the agent’s radios was energetic typing.

 

Eggsy finally located Harry—or an explosion caused by his lighter grenade, that is. It had been too loud not to notice.

Five men who had got too close to him caught it. The blast swept them aside; they all went flying into the paintings and windows. One of them fell through the glass and landed on the pavement outside.

The shattered glass caught the attention of several tens of people including the British agents. Another group of killers ran to Harry. They opened fire immediately. Harry was forced to open his umbrella to shield himself—he really did not wish for another bullet in his head.

At least he could use the built-in gun to shoot down three men and a woman from the group.

A knife sank into Harry’s back. He did not care about it at the moment—one problem at a time. There was so much adrenaline circulating his veins, he did not even feel the pain. He turned round and hit the mildly surprised attacker in his nose, using the curved handle. He hooked the handle on his neck. With a tug, he sent him staggering right in front of Mary Watson, who kicked him in the solar plexus before ending him with a precisely aimed shot.

 

The brief diversion allowed 007 to kill two very irritating assassins who were after his neck and wouldn’t retreat or die that easily. He had a moment to regain spatial orientation. James quickly looked down and determined his colleagues’ position. He decided to act.

He was the one closest to the cluster at the table, regardless of the fact he stood in a balcony above them.

He heard another heavy approach him from behind. Without turning, James ran a bullet through his forehead. He did not need to turn. The man fell on the cold, hard ground.

James propped himself against the balustrade. With a nimble, skilful move, he leapt over it and flew downstairs. He expertly landed on his feet (lucky he did not land on anyone’s back), curled up in a somersault to ease the impact, and ran toward the control table.

He did not avoid hand-to-hand combat with two or three men on the way. They were armed, but so was he. And he could use one of them as a human shield upon capturing him, whereas they could not.

That move had saved him from a bullet in his shoulder and a knife in the abdomen.

The dead body was heavy, but it provided efficient cover. It gave James the necessary second to target their vital organs and strike.

He ran out of bullets as well by then. He could take a gun from the SPECTRE bloke, but he’d risk being exposed and killed by a woman who had decided that he was her next target after an unsuccessful attempt on killing 004.

She wore a stout frown on her tanned face, the octopus ring, and a white shirt soaked with blood escaping her belly. She had been shot, but still didn’t give up the fight and carried a machine gun of her own.

No, Bond could not pick up the gun. He quickly hid by a window; there was just enough space for him to fit in, and a thick wall the bullets won’t destroy right away. The woman fired.

The situation might have reversed in the Kingsmen and Double-Oh’s favour for a while—but now, James thought he truly was in deep shit, because he had no arm or a nearby corpse to steal one from, and he could not risk coming out of his cover for that. The chances of being hit were higher and higher.

There were two options to choose from: jumping through the window or asking 004 for help. As far as he remembered, she happened to be in vicinity and carrying two fully loaded pistols she had borrowed from her dead enemies.

“004, would you mind…?”

The agent did not even bother to answer. She quickly stunned the man she was fighting and refocused on the woman.

She was getting too close. The bullets have already worn down the wall, and Bond had to press tighter against the windowpane.

Then the fire ceased. A muffled groan escaped the woman’s mouth. Metal clunk on tiles, and the body collapsed on the floor as well. 007 could re-emerge and get back to killing the SPECTRE sons-of-bitches.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” he said with a nonchalant smile and jumped on the ground. He dusted and straightened his suit jacket. As if clothes really mattered at that point.

Another SPECTRE mobster crossed James’ path. 007 quickly disarmed him, and he did not even need a weapon to do so—a standard weapon, in any case. He had taken a chair, which was a means of defence just as good.

Scarlet Allison ran closer to him. She kicked a gun out of a man’s hands, made a 360° turn to gain momentum, and kicked him in the teeth, hard. He lost balance and lurched, right into the path of a collaborator’s bullet.

 _“Arthur, we need the sodding table destroyed, right about now,”_ Merlin reported to the glasses after some time of silence from his side. He sounded demanding, disturbed.

 _“I’m afraid we cannot hold off their defence for much longer. They have found an available satellite in close proximity to the circle, and now they’re trying to repeat the good old trick,”_ added Q. He continued to write coded orders and instructions with all vigour he had had. Because SPECTRE weren’t just the muscles. They were mostly brains, masterminds. _“Preliminary statistics talk about millions of casualties and property damage of many billion, but it is estimated to be more.”_

The reports were horrible as it is, without the actual news. Hearing it made the situation so much worse. Millions—millions of lives on SPECTRE’s account. That would have been too much to bear even for Richmond Valentine. It was _sickening_.

 

Harry got rid of his—very strong, for the record—opponent at last. He paused and stood still in the middle of the merciless slaughter. He reached for a button on his glasses. One press and the clever software scanned the environs.

There were many dead people lying about on the ground in pools of their own blood. Fewer people were standing on their feet and fighting. Nevertheless, those who still endured were the hardiest of them all. The ambitious entrepreneurs and genius scientists who barely knew how to shoot a gun were killed within the first five minutes.

But even they still were the last, desperate cries into the silence.

Just a few metres away from where he stood, Harry could see Eggsy and agent 001 kick and shoot their way through a cluster of irritable officers with bloody knuckles and revolvers in their hands. That made him move again.

The knife wound bled and ached, but he tried to ignore it.

“I’ve been desperately trying since the very beginning, quartermasters, and so has the rest of the team, but I’d like to inform you it has been bloody impossible so far,” he replied. Bloody indeed.

Harry turned to the table. Leaping over some bodies, he ran to it, practically without any resistance from SPECTRE’s side until Alberici shouted “Go! Tear them asunder!” at his minders. He spoke English, this time.

As though that could ever happen.

On his way to the control table, Harry spotted 007 and 004 combating two young men with knives. They were trying to get closer as well, and pushing the men against the wooden counter.

Bond glanced at him.

 _Go there and do what they say. Make it quick. We’re watching your back._ Or so he might have said.

Harry tore his eyes away from the MI6 agents, just in time to shoot a fast Asian male holding an actual sword—a bloody sword, he noted. That was bad. One of the agents had been wounded unless he had killed some of his men, which was highly unlikely.

The worry it might have been Eggsy or Roxy whom he had wounded, or worse, killed, crept into his mind, and it wouldn’t leave. However, he had no time to look for his knights.

He ducked to avoid bullets and a piece of wood flying his direction, probably a chair’s leg. That gave him an idea.

He reached for a sturdy chair lying on the floor on his left. Breaking it had cost him a fair amount of force, but he succeeded, and threw it at the nearest person with utmost force. It stuck in a man’s right lung, and he shot one of his own dead by accident as he fell.

Had Harry not done it, Mary would have ended up with a bullet in her breast.

She caught up with him.

She did not have the Kingsman glasses, but she did not need them to assess the state of play either. One quick look was enough to see that neither of them had died, merely suffered some severe or less severe wounds. The room wasn’t teeming with as many terrorists as before. Mary reckoned there were maybe 45 of them still standing; that was six heads for every agent. All of them had been through worse.

Moreover, some of them were cowardly fleeing back to their computers underground (what else could they be hiding in there, surely not nuclear warheads ready to be released) when they realised what could few trained operatives do with a sufficient supply of weapons.

 

Harry suddenly recalled the Kentucky incident. He had murdered tens of people in that church and remained the only one standing. It had been a nasty massacre—and this case was alarmingly similar. Ruthless. Worse.

Because this time, no one was influenced by the neurological wave from the SIM cards. It was all executed consciously.

However, those whom the government had ordered dead deserved it a hundred times, for all the atrocities many of them had committed, and the frauds and crimes the others had planned. Harry had to tell himself that when he switched the empty magazine in his pistol for a full one.

 

Mary instinctively stretched her arm backwards and shot a man with an intention to kill them both directly in his head.

“Well done, Arthur,” she said. It was about the chair, and saving her life, too.

“Likewise, 001,” replied Harry, mildly out of breath.

He had been watching her every now and then. Mary Watson was an excellent fighter. She was worthy of her codename, 001, and had she not become a SIS agent, she might have been the perfect candidate for Agravain. 

She saw everything he had done, too, and she had to admit he had been doing greatly. Best of them all, some might argue, despite his age and condition. If all the Double-Ohs were as physically fit, Six could consider postponing the retirement age by a few years.

And she certainly was a little envious of the Kingsmen’s sophisticated toys. She could only dream of such equipment in the days of her service. She also thought the young Holmes could take inspiration in this mission and supplement MI6’s arsenal with superior weaponry.

 

Two robust Italian men with blades and pistols set off for their position. They were, so to speak, the sole obstacle in the way to the panel.

Harry made short work of the problem. He unfastened his umbrella and told 001 to join him. Mary squatted next to the Kingsman. Most parts of her body were shielded from not only bullets but also an explosion Harry set off.

A thunderous blast sounded through the chamber. The men quickly found themselves in the air, carried away by the shock wave. They landed on their backs with a thump. One of them broke his neck as he hit the edge of the wooden table, and his lifeless body slid down between a chair and a colleague’s corpse.

The other two weren’t in any better state. One smashed his head against the floor so hard he blacked out. The projectile hit the last one; Harry has always been a perfect shot.

 _“Fantastic, Arthur, 001. Proceed. Kill everyone but Alberici; M wants him transferred and questioned. With enough solid evidence, he can go and pay Blofeld a visit. A permanent one,”_ Q said with perhaps too much enthusiasm, given the circumstances. However, he was right.

Both agents answered with a simple “copy that”.

They stood up. As Harry passed by the unconscious man, he shot him with a poison dart. Having not closed the shield, he and Mary ran to the panel.

It was protected only by three people: Alberici, one bodyguard, and a thin Japanese operating the screen. He was trying to annul Q and Merlin’s commands and regain control. Concerning his nervous, sweating face, it did not go well. Obviously.

The bodyguard noticed the couple instantly. For the whole time, he had been observing. He wouldn’t engage unless given an order—which has just come out of Alberici’s mouth. “Kill them!”

The boss himself drew a gun hidden inside the waistband of his trousers. He fired.

It was a vain effort, though. A classic 9mm pistol could not shoot through the umbrella. The bullets just ricocheted off the cloth and fell down in front of Harry’s feet.

Alberici was out of cartridge in a few seconds. Harry had no ammo left either, but he was fairly certain he still had one tranquiliser dart. He had been saving it for the octopus’s head.

“What about the hacker, Q?” asked Mary. He perhaps might provide some useful information, too.

_“I can extract all files we may need. He is no use to us, get rid of him.”_

She peeped out from behind the umbrella, no longer protected, and fired her gun. The bullet embedded itself in the hacker’s heart. He fell forwards and faceplanted the table. His blood ran out onto the screen.

The programmes quit working as they did, and soon, the hardware hissed as the liquid reached the circuitry. Blood was a vital fluid to organisms but a lethal one to machines.

Q and Merlin could rest for a while, if it were possible during the current situation.

 _“Thank God, 001!”_ exclaimed Merlin.

Q slammed his palms against the desk and sighed in relief. The restless typing stopped. _“Remember we need Alberici alive.”_

As if her name was James-reckless-Bond. When her orders were to stun, she did not kill. She did not kill unless the situation specifically required it, like in previous twelve minutes.

Besides, Arthur had the tranq, not she. Her job was to stop the goon.

 

Alberici was becoming more and more furious. He had likely counted up the odds and figured he wouldn’t be able to restore the frequency by himself. Or at all.

Mary took cover again. She holstered her gun. If she recalled it correctly, she had the last bullet.

The bodyguard was approaching them. He fired a machine gun. That _could_ penetrate the shield.

“The shield isn’t going to hold for much longer,” Harry stated. He turned to Mary. “Be quick.”

She nodded. She sprang up in a fast somersault so she would be less likely to get hit. When she stopped at his feet, she rose quickly and elegantly, knocking the gun out of his hands with her left elbow. It landed at the table’s leg.

The man struck. His fist went right for her side, and he attempted to trip her up. 001 wouldn’t let him.

She skipped left in an evasive manner. She ducked before his other fist, which put her in the perfect position to hit his side. The move wouldn’t do much harm, but it was a distraction. Mary swiftly turned round; she stood behind him now.

Her knee struck his crutch from below. He hissed with pain but still tried to tread on her foot with all force he had. Uselessly. Mary put her arms round his neck and pressed.

The man was tough. He grabbed her hands, crouched, tilted forwards, and threw her over his head. He was about to pull out another pistol. He thought he could destroy her.

But he was so wrong. 001’s reflexes were quick. The impact hurt like hell, yet she managed to snatch a handgun lying about on the ground. She outdrew him.

The big, bad thug collapsed onto someone else’s body. There was a gaping hole through his brow.

Mary exhaled. It felt like all the tension and concern escaped her body with the air, despite they were nowhere close to winning yet.

She jumped to her feet and turned round to see what was happening at the table. She half-expected the Italian to point a gun at her (and Harry), but au contraire, he was the one at whom the gun was pointed.

Or an umbrella, anyway.

Harry pressed the button before Alberici managed to react. He aimed precisely as ever. The dart that had come out of the tip hit a vein in the man’s neck.

His hand started to shake, and he dropped the revolver he’d been holding. His eyes lost focus. He yelled something incomprehensible at them when he reeled, and then the compound took over his body. He lay down on the table right next to his hacker, right into the puddle of his blood.

001 took initiative. She pulled a pair of handcuffs out of her jacket and put them around Alberici’s wrists. She hauled him away to the wall. He was heavier than one would think at first sight. Tougher, as well.

His unconscious body rested against the wall, under a landscape painting. But he could not stay there. Among his people.

“I have to take him out. Leaving the building,” Mary announced. Her voice was a little husky.

 _“Go,”_ Q said, but he was not too delighted with sending his (correction: temporarily his) best Double-Oh outside while he still desperately needed her inside.

Mary hopped on the windowsill. She broke the glass using the barrel of her gun—it was the fastest and probably safest exit. It needed several hits before the pane shattered and tumbled on the ground with a tinkling sound.

She pulled Alberici up by the arms without more ado, and when the body comfortably rested on the sill, she jumped outside. Alberici followed a while after. Then 001 disappeared out of sight.

 

Harry picked up a random gun from the ground. He fired a few rounds into the table. It had ceased to operate some time ago, but he wanted to be certain. It undoubtedly was short-circuited now.

 

When the last adherents of SPECTRE found out their boss was pushing up the daisies—or so they assumed—they suddenly came to a halt for a split second. The organisation had no leader now. They felt a grave fear it might not survive the day at all.

That made the few of them fight for their legacy even more vigorously than they had fought so far.

 

Dismantling SPECTRE, that was exactly what the agents’ task had been. And it seemed like they might actually accomplish the mission. Everyone realised that.

There were about forty men still standing, resisting, and a few members who presently weren’t in Italy. They had probably died in the neuro-wave battles. If they had not, they hardly could rebuild the criminal network from the foundations.

They, the pathetic and broken few, were all that was left of the famous organisation.

 

But the broken few had no one to take orders from, so they decided they would destroy England while they still had the chance, even if it meant cowardly running to hide in the underground bunkers. Alberici would never allow that. But he was gone.

A balding, middle-aged man with a knife wound in his shoulder, probably Russian or Ukrainian, shouted something about Code Brown.

No one knew what precisely that had meant. Code Brown could be many things, chemical spill or a situation of extreme emergency in medical jargon, for instance. But what could it be right now, right here?

Everyone from SPECTRE ceased fire or any attacks. They left the chamber with dispatch, escaping through every door. That was very confusing, and obviously not good.

 _“Run!”_ Merlin shouted on the comms. He was so loud the agents’ ears hurt.

 

The man had broken into their system as he had tried to switch off the servers. He had not managed to do so, but it had borne a different sort of fruit. He had extracted all data—yottabytes, it was—among which he could find what Code Brown stood for.

Gas.

They were going to contaminate the above-ground premises with hydrogen cyanide. It was the last trick up their sleeve. They knew they could not defeat the Queen and Country’s agents in battle. They would all fall. This way, they could at least fall together.

And if they hid downstairs, they _did_ have a thin chance of survival.

How ironic—hydrogen cyanide was what had made Raoul Silva the man he had been. One of the things that had made him that.

 

_“Fucking run when I tell you so, there is gas! Get out of there!”_

The five agents broke into a run instantly. Four of them headed for the big, dark door at the opposite side of the room. Harry was only a few metres from the window Mary had smashed, so he jumped through it.

That brought up memories of professor Arnold’s office and the explosion. At least he went legs first this time, and landed with some sort of grace.

Roxy was the closest to the door. She ran through, not waiting for the others. Once she was in the corridors, it was not hard to get outside.

She ran to the cars. She spotted 001 shoving Alberici at the back seat of another ‘borrowed’ vehicle in afar, and Harry approaching her on the left. She waited for her boss to catch up with her, and they moved on in Mary’s direction without any words.

Eggsy was right behind them.

His face contorted with pain as he ran. There was a trail of blood drops behind him. A long slash stretched along his coat, jacket, and shirt. The boy was pressing on it with his hand.

That was the swordsman’s doing. If he had not already paid for it, he certainly will now.

 

Eggsy slipped through the door in the last second before someone down there hit a few keys, and thick safety plates sealed off the door and all windows.

No one could anticipate such elaborate means of defence.

004 and 007 ran up to the door when there were only centimetres separating the barriers. There was no way of escape now. Scarlet kicked the metal and banged a fist on it with a growl. James cursed.

No one had a clue where 009 had disappeared to. He has been nowhere to be seen since the first shots in the battle.

 _“Shit!”_ yelled Q. He saw everything. He knew what had happened. _“Fuck! Bollocks! No, I am not losing three of my best agents! Look around—is there any other way out?”_

So Alex was still inside, too. Could things get any worse? It was godforsaken Christmas!

The agents could hear more of that frantic typing in their ear. Their Quartermaster was trying to find an escape, _some_ other exit, despite the fact everybody realised there was none. There wasn’t even a ventilation shaft or a secret corridor to the basement.

“See, Q, this is exactly the kind of situation I could use an explosive pen in,” said James. He regretted he didn’t steal a grenade from the Kingsmen.

 _“The amount of explosives that could fit inside a pen wouldn’t be sufficient for blasting through the door, James.”_ Q had to be clever even now. _“And know that even this won’t make me make you one.”_

 _“Go upstairs, try the balconies,”_ Merlin advised. Then he grumbled. _“Galahad, no, I forbid you from going there!”_ Another grumble. He uttered a curse. And another. _“Fuck, Harry, tell your boyfriend something, he won’t bloody listen!”_

The input from Merlin was cut off. They could not hear what had Harry said to Eggsy or if he were going there despite his orders, and the cut across his ribs.

James ran to the left sidewall. There was a door and a staircase behind it. He opened it. It was obstructed, too. Of-bloody-course. He tried the door next to it, but it was hopeless.

And a colourless, malodorous gas started to waft through the interstices on the walls. It drifted around the walls and quickly rose up to the ceiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha I'm cruel but I have warned you it's going to be angsty
> 
> Djinn93, I'm so sorry


	10. Eight

Lancelot and 001 were waiting by the cars, guarding Alberici.

Harry and Eggsy were standing aside. But to say they were standing was figurative; Eggsy was leaning against a different car and pressing a satin handkerchief to the cut. It kept bleeding, but luckily for him, it wasn’t too deep. Eggsy had dodged the blade just in time.

Harry, together with Merlin and Roxy, had managed to talk him out of running back into the hell inside the palace. It was minutes before he had grudgingly agreed to stay at the car park.

There was nothing the Kingsmen could do, anyway. They heard everything Q and Merlin had said. The Double-Ohs were trapped inside, and their lives depended on whether 009 or the quartermasters could somehow, by a miracle, get help.

All they could do was wait and tend to their own wounds.

That was the worst of all, the powerlessness.

 

 _“Leave everything, press a piece of cloth against your mouth and nose, and try to breathe as little as possible. HCN is lighter than air, so it lifts up. It affects the organism through the respiratory tract. Lie down on the ground, face down,”_ Q said, somewhat collected.

He tried to remain objective and indifferent. It was impossible, though. It was _James_ in there, slowly dying from cyanide poisoning.

No, no, no, he absolutely was not dying. Q wouldn’t let him, not while he still lives and breathes.

_“I don’t want to be bringing any premature conclusions, but given the gas’s concentration, you have no more than twenty minutes. Merlin and I are doing all that’s in our power to stop the inflow, but it’s controlled mechanically, not by a computer. Of course they’d know that outdated equipment is the best failure precaution.”_

 

James and Scarlet did precisely what Q had said. They lay on the cold ground at the door, and then they wrapped their woollen scarves tighter around their face. It was hard to breathe through the wool, but they would tighten it more if it meant buying their colleagues at London HQ and themselves more time.

They had been in this situation before. Countless of times, in James’ case. He had long lost track of the missions that had brought him to the verge of the underworld. Death was an old friend of his.

Although, there always was someone who’d got him out. Q. His brilliant, genius, adorable, slightly bossy, and bold Q. Andrew. He was with him now, but his voice was distant, floating in deep space, whereas James was trapped on Earth.

The man, as if on cue, spoke up again. He brought news of less pessimistic nature.

 _“I’ve located 009. And the good news is that those who were hiding in the computer room during the fight still think he’s with them, so he has access to_ everything _. He’s trying to put the system out of operation. Hold on.”_ Q made it sound like an order. Like there was magic to the words. Like he made sure they’d survive if he’d said ‘hold on’ firmly enough. _“You simply will not die of sodding gas poisoning, do you understand? Not after what you’ve done. Not after I’ve invited you to a Christmas party. Forget about that!”_

He tried to lighten the atmosphere with jests. He gave them hope in a hopeless moment. And maybe they smiled beneath the scarf.

Frankly, it was so easy to forget it was Christmas. Villains do not take a holiday (don’t they have families to spend the holidays with, too…?), so when you are a spy, you don’t think of such trivial matters often. Facing a catastrophe, you forget.

Molecules of the gas slowly penetrated the wool, and the Double-Ohs started to smell bitter almonds. Twenty minutes, Q said? 009 ought to hurry, then. Leaving on Christmas Eve due to such ignominious cause was not their idea of a good ending.

James cocked his head and locked eyes with Scarlet. This was the first time he saw fear and insecurity reflecting in those dark brown irises. Agent 004 never let anything stop her. She was not afraid. She did not have doubts. Neither did he.

Until now.

James wished he could hear Q’s voice at least one more time—in case Alex wouldn’t manage to stop the gas and let them out. Just his voice, and the beautiful public school accent embellishing it.

He thought of 001’s husband and daughter. He thought of the two Kingsman agents, Harry and Eggsy. They both had got away. They had had each other. All he had left of the person he loved was a voice altered by the radio.

And he wanted to have all of it.

 

Once upon a time, James Bond would not have feared to die. Once upon a time, he had had no one. Not after Vesper Lynd. But now, he did not want to give up. He did not want to let go of the fleeting life that held onto him for so long during the hardest of missions.

Not until he retires, lives for forty more years with his Andrew and a few more cats they adopt, spends Christmas with the Holmeses every bloody year, and dies of a heart attack in a sterile, white hospital when he is all grey and wrinkled.

He liked to think of a future like that—because that would mean _having_ a future. And it would be as happy as life of an international spy can only be.

Once upon a time, James Bond would have been embarrassed about such thoughts. Now he knew that was exactly what he wanted from life. He was not embarrassed about love. Everyone finds it, eventually. He was a living proof of that.

But now—now he didn’t know. Anything.

 

The gas burnt James and Scarlet’s eyes, too. They both turned to face the floor and shut their eyelids. James covered his mouth with his hands.

They just lay on the ground like that, two deadly MI6 spies, and prayed for a rescue.

The only person who could rescue them risked his own life by doing so. If SPECTRE exposed Alex’s cover and found out he had been trying to circumvent the gas pipes, they would kill him on the spot, and the Double-Ohs with him.

The cyanide burnt their nose and throat, and it got in their blood and viscera. A few more minutes and it will be unbearable.

And then 009 finally spoke. _“Just hang in for a while longer. I’ve already cut off the gas, but opening the doors and windows will take some more time. Q, I need a diversion in the watchtower.”_

_“Welcome back, 009. I’m already on it. Hurry up.”_

James had to smile. That sounded exactly like Q. He was satisfied now, even if a word to another agent should be the last thing he would ever hear (from him, or anyone).

But now he knew it wouldn’t be. Couldn’t be. Q, his beloved Q, had made sure of that, as he always had.

James seized the little bit of hope inside of him and held it tight. They will get out. Turner can make it.

That hope also implanted a perfect vision of the evening in his mind—as far as his Walther PPK/S was concerned, it still rested behind the waistband of his trousers, and James was definitely coming back to Q in one piece with it. Q had made a promise. May he never doubt they will enjoy at least two rounds of reunion sex when they get home (or the next day, anyway; he felt like shit now and doubted he would magically heal in a couple of hours). May he never doubt.

 

James couldn't _see_ Q, and nor could 004, but they could be sure he was doing his best to get them out of there. Again. Always.

Their only luck was that hydrogen cyanide vaporised rather fast. Once the windows will be open, it will escape with the agents and disperse in the cold December air.

Nothing happened from the agents’ point of view, but the Quartermaster’s enthusiastic “Yes!” told them he had coped with the intended and lured the security guards away to the server room.

 

Q watched everything on the cameras—he had hacked them in the end—and saw the room empty.

“The coast is clear, 009,” he said. He could only wait for a response now, be it a word or the swishing sound of plates being lifted up.

 

Alex Turner stepped forwards, wearing a determined, stern look on his sharp face. He walked apace. The two men from the watchtower ran past him without giving him a second thought.

They viewed him as a fellow survivor hiding from the gas. They couldn’t know who he really was and what he was up to.

He turned right. One last security check, and he slipped inside the first room on the right. He closed the door behind him and walked to a panel opposite it. There were large screens on the wall, displaying camera feed from the entire palace and vicinal areas. He flinched at the sight of his two colleagues lying on the ground like corpses.

“In position,” he told Q and Merlin. He stopped caring about being recognised by the Kingsmen. He will have to do some explaining anyway.

The gas might not stream into the meeting room anymore, but it lingered. He had to save the Double-Ohs and prove to be a good agent, not the traitor Harry and Eggsy thought him to be.

His gaze travelled to a table below the screens. It looked like an ordinary angular iron table, but Alex knew it was, in fact, a sleeping touch screen. It could be activated with a press of a particular spot on the edge.

That touch screen controlled all technologies and apparatuses in the palace. 009 turned it on only to deactivate it again with a precise shot in the middle of it.

“Task accomplished.”

_“Excellent.”_

The wall—or door, to be precise—in front of the Double-Ohs started to move sideways. They both breathed in relief. Figuratively. In truth, they couldn’t breathe almost at all.

They looked at each other.

The spark of hope in their hearts transformed into a fire. They pressed the scarves to their mouths tighter and rose.

The metal screens on the windows disappeared inside the walls where no one could notice them.

The gas leaked outside. The rest of the building was contaminated as well—SPECTRE did not have control over each room, the system was not as thought out—but the agents were free, and that was important.

What was even more important were the two broken windows. They served as the quickest way of exit again.

James and Scarlet ran across the room, leaping over the dead bodies on the ground. They jumped through the closest window and ran away from the palace, as much as any movement burnt their throats and nauseated them. Any inhale and exhale.

They did not have much time before everyone finds out they are gone. They would grab a gas mask and be after them in no time. The agents hoped they’d be comfortably sitting in a helicopter, on the way back to their beloved England by then.

 _“009, get out of there, quickly!”_ Q ordered. The calm settling back in his voice was obvious.

James was certain he had feared for all of them to death. He was certain he had sipped at his tea in regular intervals, tapped his foot on a chair leg, and stared at a computer screen, blinking too often. He tended to do that when in stress.

 _“They know about you, and they’re prepping for an attack,”_ added Merlin. His voice was full of nervousness that mixed with the omnipresent professionalism.

 

Shaken, gasping for breath, coughing, having the strongest of headaches but otherwise relatively alright, that was the diagnosis. The agents came to a stop to take a breath for a moment. The cyanide escaping the building meant no harm to them now. They could finally release the scarves and get some air into their lungs. And exhale the gas.

Some particles, of course, permeated the cloth and strongly irritated the mucous membranes. It smarted like a bitch and made the Double-Ohs cough and heave.

That was nothing in comparison to the fact they could have died in the gas cage, though.

 _“Are you alright?”_ Q asked, aware of the inappropriateness of the inquiry. He knew they were not. But he had to ask.

“I’ve had worse, Q.” James practically coughed the answer up. His voice was hoarse.

He lied, and everyone knew it.

“I think I’ll live,” said Scarlet, equally weak.

They’ll live—after they get some iron inside them, get all the cyanide out of their body, and rest for a while. _If_ they do. They are Double-Ohs, not listening to the doctor is what they do.

They broke into a run again.

 

Agent Turner caught up with them as they were halfway to the cars and the rest of the team. He was holding a handkerchief to his mouth, and when he put it away, he struggled for air no less than the two of them a while ago.

 

They arrived at the car park. They saw Mary and Roxy sitting in a car with Alberici, who still was asleep, and Harry with Eggsy standing at a different vehicle. The younger man was hurt, and he looked awfully pale. Oh shit.

Then he turned to them and eyed Alex—or as he knew him, Charlie Hesketh. His face stiffened and turned even paler.

“What the fuck is that cocky wanker Charlie doing here?!” he yelled, and it had cost him all strength he had. “I thought I’ve heard your voice on the radio, and then I thought it couldn’t be bloody possible, but now you’re standing right fucking here. What the fuck is going on?!”

Harry caught him by arm. It was a clever move; he knew Eggsy might swoop on him despite the wound. The boy was unstoppable when angry.

“I can explain, Eggsy, I—”

“No, no, just shut the fuck up!” His face regained some colour. “It all makes sense now. I get it. You’re MI6 the whole time!” He turned to the Double-Ohs. “You’ve been spying on us!”

The grip on his arm tightened. Harry had to hold him by the shoulders now. He wanted to talk him out of doing a very stupid thing he might regret. “Eggsy—” But he could find no words.

And God knows for how long would the heated conversation go on had Merlin and James not interfered.

_“Everyone quit the shit right now and focus on the mission, cos they are after us. We aren’t no children in nursery. Yes, Charlie was an MI6 mole, Q explained everything. Now’s not the time to talk about it; you’re all professionals, so I hope you can push personal affairs aside. Have I made myself clear?”_

“Perfectly, sir,” Eggsy nodded as though Merlin could see him. (He probably could.)

They could not think about it much. Yes, yes, it was a scandal, the government having spied on Kingsman, an independent service operating with the utmost level of secrecy, but now was not the time for it. Banging a fist in a solid object and a few profanities must have been enough.

“Merlin is right, we must keep a cool head. I gather you two don’t exactly fancy each other, but we have to go now, before they,” 007 turned round and pointed his hand at the palace and two men with machine guns running out of there, then cleared his throat, “catch up with us.”

He grunted at the thought of having to fight them again and rolled his eyes. It hurt a little. Nevertheless, he cocked his gun. He still had some cartridges to waste on SPECTRE, and some breath to spare.

He forgot about the drama between Alex and Galahad quickly, hoping they would follow his example. Time was running out—and so were their enemies (out of the _palace_ ).

Roxy and Mary got out of the car. When Roxy saw 009, she glared daggers at him, but she said nothing. She had heard Merlin’s speech. She had to keep emotions aside.

The Double-Oh ran to Scarlet.

“We have to get out of here,” 004 said hushedly. The men were getting closer.

The two women walked to the black car they sat in before. Mary supported Scarlet with her body to help her get in. The car was Italian, steering wheel on the left, so she had to sit on the right seat.

 _“009, get in with 001 and 004. 007, you’re going with the Kingsmen. You’re all flying to MI6,”_ said Q, sharp. That was not a question. _“And don’t forget you owe me tomorrow’s Christmas party.”_

Harry and Eggsy got in the car as well, careful of their wounds. Roxy helped Eggsy get inside just like Mary had helped 004. The boy was so awfully cold, and hurting.

“I may have met your family just today, Q, but I’d reckon they won’t be very excited about inviting a bunch of spies over without saying a word,” replied James, and his lips stretched into one of those half-smiles of his. He imagined his boss’s face, and Sherlock’s, and the savoury biscuits being gone in no time.

And then he coughed. It turned into a proper coughing fit, he had to prop himself up against the car.

 _“I will tell them!”_ Q objected. _“Eventually.”_

 _Eventually. When they appear at the doorstep._ Q hated planning—because something could always go wrong. This was the case. James knew his partner all too well.

_“And now go! They are closing up on you.”_

And firing. The first bullets flew through the air round them. Luckily, they still were too far away to hit the target—them.

The annoying sound of police sirens could be heard everywhere around them. They were closer and closer. Good. The agents could leave with the thought that the last SPECTRE affiliates are going to be apprehended by local authorities. Simply for shooting guns they most likely weren’t authorised to have.

James finally stopped coughing. Gasping for breath, he climbed into the car next to Roxy. Harry was driving, and James really didn’t object to it for once.

He pulled away from the kerb with absolute precision. He avoided debris, garbage, bodies, or any other objects lying on the road with equal exactness. Though, he did run over a plank and an orange and some small items thrown out of people’s bags. Those were everywhere.

The consequences of the second V-Day were much worse than the first’s. All the trash, blood, and bodies on the ground, that was a horrible sight to bear. Even for an operative trained to remain composed under any circumstances.

The men with the submachine guns wouldn’t stop running toward them and firing. James and Roxy in the backseats had to bend down to avoid the projectiles.

The rear window had survived the rage of violent people, but it didn’t survive bullets. The glass burst inside the car. Haven’t the agents worn thick coats, they wouldn’t have come out of that as easily.

Harry stepped on the gas. He drove as fast as the road allowed him to.

He reached for his earpiece. “How is Alberici?”

 _“Sleeping Beauty, he is,”_ answered Mary. She hoped he would stay that way until they are up in the air and somewhere above the Mediterranean Sea. _“We’ve arrived at our helicopter.”_

MI6’s was closer to the palace, but the Kingsman could see theirs as well. Roxy looked out of the nonexistent window and assured her teammates no one was after them.

“As have we.”

This time it was Q who replied. _“Lovely. Oh, and Mallory wants to have a word with you lot when you come back.”_

 

The Kingsmen and the Double-Ohs got out of the smashed cars and exchanged them for the comfort of their large helicopters. With Mary and Harry in the cockpit, they headed back to London.

Operation SPECTRE was behind them—partly. There still was the head to interrogate and deal with.

The rest of their associates will go right behind Italian bars, after a few consultations between M and Italian secret service. They will go where they rightfully belong. M and Q will see to that personally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Satisfied now? :)
> 
> I know this looks like an ending, but it's not. If anything, it's the ending of the drama. One more chapter, and then fluff's incoming!
> 
> Also, I made the cyanide poisoning aftereffects a little milder for the fic, because yeah, it's _fiction_ , but basically, this is what it looks like (with gas HCN), not what's in the films. The problem is breathing, as it 'blocks' respiratory enzymes. I'm (almost) a chemist, I should know. I'm just saying this in advance for the next chapter, too. There I'll explain more.
> 
> Changed the chapter count because of an epilogue I didn't originally plan.


	11. Nine

It was night when the agents returned to HQ.

A door between the garage and the main corridors slid open with a loud, rattling sound. Seven agents—four Double-Ohs and three knights of the round table—walked ahead, down the long brick hallway. Their pace was fast, set, elegant. They were in a hurry.

Lancelot and 001 were striding in the middle, holding the defiant Italian by his arms, one each. His fragile-pensioner demeanour would suggest otherwise, but he was fairly uncooperative, even with cuffed hands.

He still was the boss of the world’s most influential and most powerful criminal organisation.

The agents’ shoes were clacking on the stone floor; echoing everywhere around them. The corridor was dark. The only source of light was motion-controlled strip lights that gave their faces a peculiar white tinge.

It obscured most of the bruises and cuts and blood stains on their fancy clothes.

James and Scarlet felt awfully sick. They had had strong headaches and vertigos. They had vomited several times during the flight, and it was worse with every minute without proper medical attention.

Nevertheless, they acted as if everything was alright and refused helping hands from their colleagues.

After a few turns, they arrived at the door to the main operation centre. M, Tanner, Q, and Miss Moneypenny have already been waiting for them in there, and so have men from the containment unit ready to apprehend Pietro Alberici.

009 opened the door and entered first. He saw Mallory’s gloomy, impatient countenance, as well as piercing gazes the people at the desks downstairs gave the group. All eyes were on them. On Alberici.

“Back at last,” said Mallory, eyes cold and prudent. He nodded at the Kingsmen. “You have done a great job, all of you. Probably for the first time during my career as M,” he muttered silently, then raised his voice again: “Take him away!”

He gave James and Scarlet a sympathetic look. He could see the gravity of their condition.    

The men in heavy arms moved and seized the Italian. They put a pair of special magnetic shackles round his wrists instead of the customary ones to make sure he really wouldn’t escape. He just smirked and put on a knowing, wannabe intimidating expression.

_This is not over yet._

_Is it. Have you ever met us at all, sir?_

_(The truth was that it wasn’t.)_

 

After Silva’s ostentatious escape, MI6 had taken radical precautions about imprisonment cells and other security measures—firewalls, biometric locks. It had mostly been Q’s merit. He had not stopped blaming himself for Silva. He had worked on making the new base safer day and night.

Thanks to Q, it was ready for a prisoner like Alberici.

Besides, his stay will be temporary. He will be moved somewhere… aside, where he won’t present any danger to anyone. Where he won’t ever see anyone but the same two guards bringing him food and checking on him.

M and Mycroft discussed everything while the agents had been gone.

 

James looked in Q’s direction. They locked gazes. Q blinked a few times and let a corner of his lips curl into a thin smile. He could say James has truly returned from hell and stood on the same ground, solid, now. He could finally relax a little.

The relief did not reach his eyes. They still mirrored fatigue; responsibility; concern; fear. Especially when he saw how pale green James was. Especially when he had heard and seen it all, given orders to destroy everyone and everything.

What he desired most was run to him. He would kiss him, hold him tight, and never let go. Ever again. See if it weren’t a dream after all. And give him a scolding, too—for not being bloody fast enough. He couldn’t do any of that, though. They were at work. Professionalism above everything.

There will be time for being romantic and acting all Christmassy later. (Damn his job and all the terrorists in the world. Everything always had to be _later_.)

 

“Report to Medical with dispatch,” said M. His hands were in his pockets. He looked tired, too. “Everyone. No back talk, that’s an order. 001 and Lancelot will stay with me and deal with the formalities.” He looked at Roxy, and his gaze lingered. He held out a hand. “My name is Gareth Mallory. I’m the head in charge.”

They shook hands. She introduced herself and the couple. (Not as a couple.)

James growled. He hated Medical. Almost every Double-Oh did, it was their thing. Something to do with the general lack of self-preservation, no doubt. But this time, the growl was the only sign of protest. He obeyed gladly, otherwise.

Every each of the incomers barring Mary and Roxy left for the Medical Ward. Harry still supported Eggsy, and Alex walked between James and Scarlet in case something happened. Q stayed with M and the rest.

They walked downstairs as well. M turned to Roxy, “Technically, I should interrogate you and your colleagues too and grant you a special clearance for entering the building, but it’s Christmas, and you are already here, so I think we’ll pass that.” He pinched his nose and lowered his voice. “I am too tired to think about any of that at the moment. Having to spend the holidays here with Mycroft Holmes and the PM on the phone is bloody well enough.”

Q completely understood his position on that. Everyone knew Mycroft could be irritating, and it usually became worse on Christmas.

And then there was the tragedy—massacre, apocalypse, however you wish to call it. He knew M just wanted to erase it from the time continuum, for so did he. But this event will live in everyone’s memories for a very long, long time. History books will write about it. The news will talk about it for days straight. It was impossible to forget, to fully recover.

The planet had not even recovered from the first V-Day before it came again, bearing much more damage and casualties. So much more. It was abominable.

M lead the six of them to a large screen on the wall on the opposite end of the room. Tanner, having held a tablet in his hands the whole time, swiped his finger, and all the data were projected on the screen. There were newspaper and Internet articles, TV reports, CCTV recordings, videos of politics’ statements on Second V-Day. That’s what they officially started to call it; not very original, are they.

Smaller screens were displaying profiles of all SPECTRE members. One popped up after another and flitted across the screen, aligning in rows of six. There were so many faces.

Another screen on the wall was showing a map of the world with all the faces. Red digital strings were connecting them and their crimes; there was no one who wouldn’t have had something in common with someone else. They did trade together, operated together, got rid of inconvenient individuals together like tentacles of one giant octopus. A hydra.

(When Q thought about it, SPECTRE truly was a lot alike Hydra. They were Hydra, and his agents were S.H.I.E.L.D. All of it was more real than one would think.)

And then the faces turned red and disappeared as the dead were adding up.

Q told himself it ought to be like that, for the world’s sake, even when the price paid was so high. Innocent lives had been lost, and the agents had been forced to do terrible things. He had been forced to do terrible things. It was their job.

They had to go there and do what was necessary. Cause and consequence. They had to face it.

They had killed in self-defence, yes. Yet in the end, it hadn’t been much different from the Kentucky incident, a case of ruthless murdering. It was against both services’ principles. They were supposed to kill in an emergency, not on purpose.

The Double-Ohs might have operated under a licence to kill, but that remit did not derogate from the guilt. They did feel guilty; the feeling clawed on their chests and burdened them with a great weight. Only a robot would feel no emotions after being a witness to that. Twice in a lifetime to boot.

M, current or preceding, had always preferred dealing with things diplomatically, with a minimum of casualties. But Rome had been a special case. He had ordered to cut SPECTRE down himself.

Kill or be killed, as the saying went. It had found its use countless of times today.

 

Not more than fifty faces were glaring on the map now. It was a sad yet meritorious and unforeseen success. The few remaining individuals scattered round the world couldn’t do any more damage before MI6 catches them and puts them in gaol.

“A graphic demonstration of your actions’ impact.” M looked at the screen and back at the group. “SPECTRE was one of the most powerful and secret terrorist organisations, and today you’ve dismantled most of it. Also, thanks to you, Q and 009, for saving the operatives’ life in the palace. You’ve done an excellent job,” he paused to look the two of them in the eye. He meant it. “Tanner will acquaint you with statistics and paperwork, I really must go make a very strong cup of coffee and return to my office now.”

“I’d accompany you if you don’t mind,” said Eve and pattered after him. She could use a cup of coffee, too. Or something stronger—M always had a bottle of scotch in one of the cupboards.

“Of course, Miss Moneypenny.”

“So,” started Bill Tanner, refocused on the largest screen, “our Quartermaster stopped the wave after 16 minutes. That’s three times as long as the first time, to which, of course, corresponds to the body count. But if it weren’t for Q, we would all be doomed. No offence,” he assured the two agents. He did not doubt they would make it on their own, but it wouldn’t be soon enough. Q was just Q, and they swore by him.

“So far, we estimate the number of casualties on a hundred million, though it probably is more. Governments all over the globe have lost about a half of their members and workers. Alas, we have lost a few external operatives as well, and not as the only intelligence service. The biggest count of civilian victims is in conflict areas like the Middle East or Ukraine…”

No one was really listening to him anymore. They were completely lost in their thoughts. A hundred million dead, that _was_ atrocious.

Q had observed everything, calculated—but he would never count with this. It was so different, hearing it come from someone else’s mouth. He knew he had stopped it too late, and the realisation punched him right in the face. If he hadn’t wasted his time with Merlin and concentrated more on the task, the code, his bloody job, then perhaps—

He wished James were there to push his way through the group, take his hand, and say everything was alright and nothing was his fault. But he wasn’t; he was down at Medical.

It all started to impact him only now. Before, he could only think of saving his agents and staying objective at all costs, but now… he realised the full extent of things, saw the whole picture.

Needless to say, Tanner did not look any better. Needless to say, anyone on the planet did not look or feel any better—perhaps only perverted minds and serial killers who relished in the thought of unstoppable violence. If they hadn’t been killed by others of the kind.

It was Christmas. It was fucking Christmas, and this was the sick gift SPECTRE had given to humanity. They had planned it. They had liked the idea of it. That was why they deserved the fate the agents had inflicted upon them, Q told himself.  

Everyone who knew the whole truth had to remind themselves of that. MI6, Kingsman, the Holmeses—because they _did_ watch the news. Sherlock must have told their parents everything. Q knew his brother better than anyone else, perhaps better than his wife, so he knew, and he did not really blame him for anything.

Because he needed someone who’d know that bringing the slaughter to an end was his work and also his sorrows, someone to whom he could talk about it openly and talk out of it. If it were his family… it might be easier.

He also really really needed a bottle of strong spirits, hard music played at full blast, and a moment alone in the corner of his room, where he could just sit and drink and forget. And if James wouldn’t let him, he’d hold him. Maybe he needed some hard hate-fucking too.

He just couldn’t decide.

Tanner spoke and spoke, switching from information to information, but Q couldn’t hear a word. He wanted him to just stop. There has been enough depressive news for one day already. No one was really all ears at debriefs, but this was _worse_.

He glanced at the screen for a second.

Catastrophe. Apocalypse. Second V-Day. Deaths. Victims. Destroyed cities. Tragedy. Governments are shaken. Countries are shaken. Worse than WWII. It happened again. Those were all newspaper and Internet article headlines shining on the screen. Q perceived them somewhat hazily, they all merged into one. They were all the same: negative.

Going through all that once was horrible enough, but twice?

At Six, they knew it couldn’t have happened for the third time, but what about the rest of the world? They could not be certain about anything. Some unreliable sources talked about the end of the world, organised genocide, aliens, and such nonsense—but who was there to prove or disprove it?

If M made a press conference, he would have to say all of it, and the service would be under the scrutinising eye of the public. If the public knew about Rome, SPECTRE, Q, Kingsman, and the Double-Ohs, it would be the end of the era of espionage as it was known. Nothing would be classified anymore. Moreover, the Americans would start to meddle in their business, and that would be the definite end.

The Prime Minister knew everything. The Cabinet knew everything. Kingsman and Statesman and their foreign branches knew everything. The Italians did too, maybe—but who else? The screen with the map was still displaying over 40 faces. Those people had all the information they wanted, and they could use it as a bargaining chip against anyone, anytime. Anything could happen.

That was the worst of all _now_ , the nescience. Q got what it was like for ordinary people on the outside.

Was it worse to know or not to know, though?

No one could tell.

Was it worse to have no idea of who caused it and who stopped it, at what cost, or to know _exactly_ _that_ and live with it? Live with the fact it they had allowed it to happen? That they could have prevented it if MI6 had sent agents to Rome earlier and discovered their plans to continue in Valentine’s legacy?

 

Q came back to reality. He heard the end of Bill’s speech.

“…to a meeting with the PM, at noon. The Cabinet will decide what steps we will take next, but _something_ is certainly going to change around here. This is all we have for now. Everyone go back to your work. You three, follow me.”

The man sighed. In his mind, he had the same thoughts—but he also thought about his wife and son, and how insanely lucky he was because they’ve survived. His boy’s only fortune was that he had been outside playing with his friends, and the kids had ended up only with bruises, scratches, and one broken arm (a friend, not his son).

He turned off his tablet. He had had enough as well. He lay it on one of the nearby desks and walked to the group of agents. He introduced himself to Roxy too. He couldn’t shake off the solemn, sombre look in his eyes.

“Walk with me. I know you would never go to Medical on your own accord.” He turned right, and the agents followed suit. “We’ll deal with the paperwork later.”

Q and Mary knew the way—but they also knew they, indeed, wouldn’t go. Why would they. They were perfectly alright, thank you very much.

But then Q as if heard James next to him, saying it was for his own good. That he was in shock.

Maybe he did need to have a medical exam when he talked to himself like he was James.

“Have you even eaten something since you’ve come here, Q?” asked Bill.

Q shook his head, exactly as he had suspected. He knew Bill knew he’d become nothing more than skin and bones if it went on like that, skipping meals.

 

James usually had to watch if he ate, and he often brought him lunch down to his lab. Sometimes toast or even cooked meals, sometimes sandwiches Eve had left for him in the common fridge.

Eve watched if _James_ ate his meals and gave _him_ food. By food, she usually meant wholemeal bread full of green things without a bit of meat, which he hated, but he didn’t have the heart to tell her that, so he always gave them to Q, who would gladly scoff anything when it came to it.

Sometimes it was Q to give out food to everyone, though—that was when courgettes in Mrs Hudson’s garden ripened. Mycroft always brought him some of her creations originally intended for Sherlock, who would never eat them, to him. And in summer currants matured, and she baked awfully sour crumbles. Then all of MI6 would get a piece from both him and M.

M loved those crumbles, probably as the only one. That was the reason Mycroft gave him more of it than he gave anyone, and the reason M gave it away too. It was a travelling bribe, basically.

Come to think of it, that was probably the only contribution to the service Mycroft Holmes ever truly made. Mrs Hudson’s sour currant crumble.

 

Tanner stopped by the toilets on the left side of the corridor they were walking. “Take a piss and wash the blood off your faces. You might scare the doctors off,” he joked, telling the agents. They really couldn’t. He hadn’t put any wits in the joke.

He didn’t have to say things twice. No one thought of washing among all the action, and truthfully, they did look awful. Dirty, sweaty, exhausted, bruised, raggedy. They set out for Italy at noon, and it was midnight now.

Christmas Day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does this even make sense? IDK.  
> Also, I (re)watch too much Hannibal, and it's starting to reflect on the writing. And where this fic is going. (Be glad I didn't use any God metaphors (yet). XD)


	12. Ten

No one had imagined it like this. Christmas was supposed to be the time of delicious food, peace, cheer, and stockings with presents, not a global crisis and loads of work that was beyond unpleasant.

Q realised the party at his house won’t make anything better. He could invite everyone, they could gather and have a rest, but it just wouldn’t be it. The atmosphere wouldn’t be light and charged with happiness. They would all have to be on the phone the whole time and deal with the results of Second V-Day. It was a part of the job at MI6.

But they also needed some diversion. He needed some diversion. Perhaps the company could make them, him, forget about their responsibilities for five sodding minutes, and that counted. Especially if Mother would make them help her with cooking—that always was the best pastime. For him, anyway.

Q came out of the cubicle and walked to the washbasins. He looked at his reflection in the mirror for the first time in hours. He looked depressed and fatigued to the bones. He noticed the big bags under his eyes, dishevelled hair, and constricted pupils. His tie was askew and jumper creased.

His hands were trembling as he washed them with hot water. Was it because of stress or deficient nourishment? Maybe both. Q sighed and took off his glasses. He rinsed his face, hoping it would help.

He raised his head again. He stared at the image of himself again. And he heard someone at the back of his mind repeat those words he kept thinking of: _It was your fault. You could’ve stopped it sooner.You tried, but not hard enough._

He wanted to cry, or to smash the mirror with his fist. Or both.

He just couldn’t anymore.

 

And then phantom James appeared again, whispering words to him in the back of his mind. It was as though the man stood right next to him in the bathroom. _No, nothing is your fault, Andrew._ Even in his mind, he called him by his name. _We survived only thanks to you. You are the bloody Quartermaster of MI6, so act like it! Chase the guilt away, because there is none to feel. We all carry equal responsibility for what happened. We all do. So man up, Q, and stop wailing!_

Phantom James was also noticeably wiser, Q thought. Because he existed inside his damn head.

Even so, he was right. He helped him regain some of the accustomed self-esteem, at least a little bit, at least for a moment. 

No—Q, in fact, helped himself, and then he realised what exactly had the illusion meant—the last remainders of his own clear, reasonable conscience breaking to the surface and slapping him awake from a depressing nightmare. 

His stance on the events of the past hours had not changed, though. Neither phantom James nor real James could _ever_ rid him of all the blame. He could not know what all he felt. 

Q closed the tap. He rubbed the tiredness out of his eyes with his fingers and sighed once again. He put his glasses back on and slowly shuffled to the exit. 

Phantom Q kissed phantom James on his forehead and held his hand the whole time. 

(Okay, maybe he really needed a new prescription. This was out of the line even for him and his anxiety. Maybe he was getting worse again. He thought he wouldn't, he was good with this job so far, however stressful it might have been, but nothing was like this. Nothing would ever be. Nothing _could_ ever be. 

This was bad.

Even if James was there for him to help him ease the pain. He always did. Q used to say James Bond was a bad influence to everyone. But to him, he was everything but. He said the right words, soothed him in the blackest moments, solved oddly tangled mysteries in the near of moments by saying something stupidly trivial. 

The whole universe shifted when he smiled. Everything exploded when he touched his skin. He was his anchor keeping him from eloping into the faraway corners of his labyrinthine mind. 

Q was hopelessly in love. He couldn’t help it. 

But this—this carnage in which he had nearly died made him lose it again. He was fading, and he did not. Know. Anything!)  


Tanner and the ladies were waiting outside. When Q joined them, they continued on their way to Medical. 

He knew the doctors would force the agents to stay hospitalised for a few days, under their strict care and observance. It was a standard procedure, and he wouldn't have done otherwise. But he also knew the agents. They would do anything to go home. As bloody always.

They’d say they were used to worse things than irritable respiratory tract and ceaseless vomiting. They’d say nothing could spoil the holidays more than SPECTRE had already. They’d say the only way to at least partially undo it was trying to live the few last days of the year as normally as it was only possible. 

They’d say that was the only way they could keep a cool, sane mind—living those few happy moments fully. A quiet breakfast, cuddling in bed, Netflix shows, grocery shopping, or celebrating all those artificial, commercial holidays. Christmas, St Valentine’s Day, Easter, Halloween, Christmas again. 

(Although, after all this, no one will associate that name with love anymore. _Valentine’s Day_ would only remind everybody of the massacre now.) 

They’d say they had to forget about their fucking job, even though it will be more than hard, between all the phone calls, worrying about their health, presents, cooking, anxiety, grief, love, and family.

They’d be right. But could they convince the doctors? 

Because no, Q didn’t want to spend the holidays without James. He'd break down without him. All the sorrow and guilt would be back and grow like cancer, eating his mind. The impact would be too strong.

 

They walked and walked until they suddenly came to a stop at another door. It slid open automatically and revealed a huge room with brick walls, like all the other places in the bunkers, but this one also abounded with sterility and modernity. 

It smelled like rubber gloves and disinfectant. Medical Ward. Q hated it in there.

They stopped. Bill walked to the other side of the room to meet a man in a lab coat over a brown suit—Dr Baines—and started to ask him questions, sotto voce. 

Q’s gaze fell on the left side of the room where beds were. They were separated from the rest of the world by thick white curtains, but he could hear the beeping of heart monitors and see nurses running around and dark shadows of the patients whose heartbeat resounded through the whole sickbay. 

He couldn’t _see_ them. But he knew James and Scarlet and Alex and the two Kingsmen were there somewhere too, among all of those other agents and staffers. And if it weren’t here in this room, they would be in one next door. 

Medical Ward was huge. All the beds were occupied. 

Q couldn’t hear what Bill and the doctor were talking about, either. Although, it was evident he didn’t bring any good news, judging by his glum, unforgiving face. Dr Baines always looked like he could murder you in your sleep if you do not behave, but the glances he shot at Q right now were abysmal. He looked him—them all—up from head to toe, wrote something down in the documents on his clipboard, and started walking to them. Tanner followed him. 

As he walked past the trio, Bill patted Q’s shoulder and whispered, “Good luck with him.” 

Dr Baines certainly did not belong among the nicest people in MI6. 

“Quartermaster, you go with me. You two wait for Dr Carnaby to be finished with special agent Myles,” he said in a mildly irritated voice and waved his clipboard in the air to gesture Q to follow him to the last free bed in the back. 

Q glanced at Mary and Roxy and did so.  


He asked him questions. About everything. About the orders, lack of food and drink, twelve working hours with barely a break to pee, about his worsening mental condition. He refused to talk about the agents except for bitter thanks for saving their lives in the palace. He reminded Q of all the feelings he had managed to chase away. And what did he do to help? Recommended him starting with therapy again, along with a prescription for a bottle of pills. 

As Q had expected. 

So he’ll just take them. 

He had to pull himself together. It was Christmas, and he still had Q-Branch to lead. 

But now he _needed_ to see James again.  


Hydrogen cyanide poisoning was always tricky. Even if one received periodic doses of iron to help restore the respiratory enzymes, they still could not be sure if all was behind them. The night was critical. Even if 60 per cent patients survived and appeared normal, about a half of them still did not live to see the sun again. 

That was what Q worried about the most. The night was still young. 

The doctors, obviously, insisted on keeping the agents under proper medical surveillance for a week at least, same with Eggsy and his cut wound. 

But they wouldn’t be themselves if they did not try to back out at any rate, just as Q had supposed. 

They enforced signing an obligation under one condition: Q will keep abreast of them until the end of the year and report even the slightest of changes to Medical should something grave happen. 

Medical were aware of Q’s insane sense of responsibility and worry about his agents, so they had more or less no objections to that. Besides, they also knew of the gathering and that he and 007 _lived_ together. It was the best compromise they could offer. 

So he’ll just take it too.

 

As soon as the agents’ other wounds were tended to as well, they returned to the main room. M and Mycroft were already waiting for them there as though they had heard all that had been said. They probably had.

On the way, Q had walked in the front next to Lancelot, and they had talked. They had, somehow, come to a conclusion they quite liked each other, in contradiction to the first meeting. 

Maybe there was a second positive thing to arise from the depths of the tragedy—a rather convenient alliance with a competitive secret service.  


Q was surprised his brother was still hanging around there. He thought he’ll have gone home by then—or to his parents and Greg, anyway. It was late, and they’ll be worried. Moreover, there wasn’t much to deal with at Six anymore. All the unpleasant yet unavoidable business was not going disappear till the morning.

They all needed to go home and sleep it off. It had happened. Reality couldn't have been altered by one’s wishes. They couldn’t dwell on tragedies from the past. 

_You can’t dwell on tragedies from the past,_ phantom James whispered. _Don’t think about it too much._

The head of SIS paused to acknowledge the incoming group before he finished a sentence he was telling M. Then he turned to them, waiting for them to join him and Mallory. 

Q shifted nervously under Mycroft’s analysing sight. 

“Are they releasing cyanide poisoning patients now?” his brother muttered. Q heard it. But he knew he was only being snarky. He knew that he knew they had been provided with effective first aid on the way and were no longer in acute danger.

Did Mycroft seriously hope to get rid of them for the holidays, or even to celebrate no holidays whatsoever? 

Q was sure Mycroft would rather sit in the Westminster Palace and go through all sorts of political matters instead of doing the exact same in the family circle. How typical of him. 

M gazed at them with impatience—and also scepticism—in his eyes. “So you are back,” he said. “I have one or two further matters to discuss, and then you can all go home.” At the word _home,_ he wandered inside his mind minutely. He let out a barely audible sigh. “I am sure England will not fall in the next few days with you gone.” 

Q wouldn’t be. It had almost happened. 

He took a breath and opened his mouth to ask a question, but M raised an eyebrow and stopped him before he got the chance to speak. “You too, Q. You don’t wish to know what would happen if I see you around.” 

“Actually, I was about to say something utterly different, sir,” he corrected him. “I wanted to invite you and Miss Moneypenny and everyone else who’d want to to our Christmas party.” 

Then Q blinked. He has never thought he’d live to the day he’ll have invited M to the house he grew up in. On Christmas. After what had happened that day. 

Were it possible, M’s eyebrow would soar all the way to his hairline. He was, apparently, equally shocked. He probably did not think they would ever fully accept him after the former M, and nor he thought he would ever receive an invitation to a Christmas party from his Quartermaster, Mycroft Holmes’ brother. (Having been forced to join the whole squad for going Christmas shopping to the markets was completely different!) 

“If you aren’t too busy, that is.” 

Q turned round and locked eyes with those behind him to assure them he had not been kidding before. 

Mother will account for that—he still had not told her anything. Though, she had said he could bring someone, wasn’t that right? 

“Only if you’ve got spiked biscuits,” joked Eggsy. He chuckled, but his face twisted in pain. 

“I assure you, young man, that we _certainly_ have some spiked biscuits,” Q replied, winking. As he knew Mother, she’ll have a batch of vanilla shortbread with raisins-in-rum and a shot of whisky hidden in the pantry. And then there was the pudding. 

He has been secretly nabbing at the stash since he was a teenager. 

Harry turned to the young lad. “Eggsy, you really want to—” 

His partner gave him a disapproving look. Questioning, too. Yes, he really intended to go. “Yes, Harry. The doctor said we’re supposed to go party,” he grinned, “so we’re gonna go party. Or you _want to_ hole up in your office?”

“No, I think you are right, dear.” 

It won’t exactly be a _party_ party, but there will be alcohol, food, and Christmas music—so they as well may say they are going to go party. Which concerned Q—it will be hard to watch over such a disparate group amongst all that. 

But it was his idea, so he might just go with it.

He looked at M again. He noted his boss wasn’t exactly shining with enthusiasm either. Q gathered spending the holidays at the same place as Mycroft, the former 001, the Kingsmen, and many other people he has never seen before was not M’s idea of quality time. 

It was not that he would mind him declining. He asked out of respect and politeness, not for he thought he might actually go. 

And just as Q presumed, M apologised and said, “I’m afraid I cannot come, Q. But I’m certain Eve would love to, ask her.” 

Since when did he call her Eve instead of Miss Moneypenny? 

And where were she, Bill, and the rest, anyway? 

“Anyway, I’d like you to come to my office now,” M changed the subject to what was the original purpose of this conversation. “I hope you are better now.” 

With those words, he turned on his heel and walked up the stairs again. His office was in a different part of the underground maze. Mycroft joined Q and James and started to question his brother about his medical and mental state. 

The two of them were not holding hands. 

Q wanted to avoid uncomfortable personal questions regarding their relationship. And he did not have to—he was saved by a door to M’s office, and the absence of his dear friend. 

“I’ve sent Miss Moneypenny and the rest of my staff home,” M explained, having seen Q’s gaze linger on his secretary’s empty desk. 

“I really want to go home to my daughter too, so if you wouldn’t mind speeding it up a bit,” spat Mary, “sir.” 

She checked her watch, and so did Q in response. It was 1:24 AM. They were gone for over 12 hours. He could not imagine the fear she must have felt. Or actually, he could. He felt the same about James. 

“Of course, Double—Mrs Watson.” She wasn’t 001, not anymore. “So I think you know about tomorrow’s—or today’s, Christ—meeting in the Westminster Palace…” he began, and after a few interruptions, questions, clarifications, and minutes of staring at their boss’s exasperated face and a computer screen, Q and the agents could finally head home; get out of the light grey cage they had seen enough of for one day. 

He and the Kingsmen had a talk about internal security and potential cooperation when the Double-Ohs left. M then escorted them out of the bunkers. He trusted them not to disclose the base’s location. They were all spies; they knew the value of secrets. 

And he didn’t really have another choice, because MI6 wasn’t the organisation in possession of watches with amnesia darts.  


Since James, Q, Mary, and Mycroft had flown to HQ in a helicopter, they had to procure another means of transport to get to the Holmeses’ residence.

The couple borrowed one of the service black SUVs from the garage. After a minute of persuasion, Mary hopped on the back seat as well, since they all headed to the same place. Q was the one behind the wheel this time. 

He hadn’t driven in a while, but James was in no state to do so. He had to. 

Mycroft was nowhere in sight, so they assumed he must have stayed there with M (poor man). Q said he definitely will not wait for him, and they all agreed to that. He pulled away and drove to the way-out.

The traffic was broken, and the city was full, despite only drunkards and people going to and from airports and train stations being outside at such hour on normal days.

It took Q hours to get the three of them home, and only thanks to the ‘MI6’ printed on his driving licence.

The whole crew of the house were waiting in the foyer, standing at attention like soldiers. Their eyes were stern, and mouths demanded detailed explanations.

 

Alex did not live far from the new base, so he decided to walk. There wasn’t any danger that could surprise him, lurking behind the corner in a back alley, anyway. Nothing he’d be afraid of. 

But chaos still reigned all over London. Sirens did not stop screaming, and the red-and-blue lights were everywhere. He had to avoid lying debris with almost every step. 

The December wind was crawling beneath his destroyed coat and giving him goose bumps. The air was really cold, Alex was shivering, but he could clear his mind while walking. Or running. He always preferred walks to tube rides. 

He had phoned Danny twice, during the flight. He had picked up. He was alive. He had got into a rough fight with the neighbours, but fortunately, he had not suffered any severe wounds. He had not even gone to the hospital. 

Though he wouldn’t have done that even he had a knife in his back, Alex thought. His partner never went to hospitals, not after they’ve diagnosed him with HIV. 

He had made peace with the thought of losing Danny; it was inevitable. It was bound to happen, one day. But he did not want to lose him as of yet.

And he did not. 

He arrived at their flat and kissed him hello and again and again. Together, they retired to the sofa, carefully cuddled under a thick blanket, and rested their heads together. 

They were at home, in the arms of the person they loved.  


The only person with their own car in the garage was Scarlet Allison. She said goodbye to her colleagues, swearing she was fine. She swore to text Q the moment she gets home, too. She thanked him, and the Lord, for saving her life and got in her silver Audi. 

She did not have to drive very far, only to Hammersmith. She was welcomed by an empty flat and a small tortoise named Aurora. 

She kicked the door closed, threw her coat off, and sat in an armchair heavily, not turning the lights on. She ate two iron pills from the doctor, dry. With a sigh, she reached for a gingerbread man she bought in Vienna a week ago when she had been on a mission to stop a gang of arms dealers disguised as Christmas tree sellers. That sweet was the only reminder of Christmas in the flat. 

She thought of taking a shower, but she decided to take it in the morning. After a while of motionless sitting in the dark, silent room, 004 fell asleep.

She slept for no more than an hour, haunted by dreadful visions of V-Day. 

Then she remembered her promise, so she took her mobile and texted the Quartermaster.

 _I'm ok, no need to worry, Q._

She lied.  


Harry ordered Merlin to navigate the helicopter back to the base, and Eggsy and he took a cab to their house on Stanhope Mews.

As soon as Harry unlocked and opened the door, they could hear excited yapping. JB excitedly jumped and clawed at his masters’ legs—did he know? 

Normally, Harry would scold the dog for doing that to their suits (normally, the dog wouldn’t do it at all), though today, no one cared if they had one more hole in the trouser leg. 

Eggsy crouched and picked the pug up. His ribs hurt, but he didn’t care about that either. He nuzzled his head and planted a kiss on it, even. Oh, had he missed his little friend. Then he let him go, and JB ran to the kitchen.

They both took off their coats carefully. Harry walked to the living room and turned on the TV immediately. He switched through the channels until he found BBC News. 

Eggsy did not understand him. How could he watch the news after _personally_ _being present_ to all that? He had had enough, and he refused to see a minute of it ever again. Not when they both had almost died in Rome, trying to stop the organisation behind both V-Days. 

“Turn the bloody thing off, love,” he said peevishly when he walked past the room.

He knew Harry wouldn’t do it, though, so he backed right into the living room. He unbuttoned his jacket and carelessly threw it on an armchair, which Harry hated him doing. He liked to provoke him with such petty moves and see if his urge to keep things organised would kick in. 

It did not. He took off his waistcoat, too. “We need to take a break from that shit.”

Harry only minded the report. He listened to everything the reporter said—about the government meeting M had talked about. It was a live broadcast from the Buckingham Palace.

Eggsy crossed to his partner, who clutched at the remote control convulsively. It made him angry, but he was watching anyway. Eggsy caught him by his arms from behind and kissed his cheek. “I’m gonna try taking a shower. If you wanna join me, Harry, turn the fucking telly off.”

That made him redirect his attention, and he nodded. “I could really use a shower,” he said, but he was not there. His thoughts were still with the news.

Harry tried to give Eggsy a smile, but it was forced. He couldn’t. 

At last, he turned the TV off. He turned to leave the room with Eggsy, and as he passed the armchair, he picked up the clothes and rolled his eyes at his partner. Eggsy grinned. 

He took his shirt off, too, and dropped it to the floor. At this point, he did not know if it was a gesture of sheer provocation or just genuine fatigue. 

Harry paid no attention to it, though. He could only see fresh scars and bruises covering his back and the blood-soaked gauze covering his left side. And he could only hear the hisses he had emitted when he undressed. 

His own body was mottled with wounds matching his, and practically every single move hurt him, but he had got used to it over the years at Kingsman. Eggsy, on the other hand— 

It shouldn't have ended up like this.  


Roxy usually stayed at the base for the nights. This time was no different. She stopped keeping in touch with her parents long ago, be it Christmas or not. She could at least talk openly about everything that might haunt her dreams in there, with the other knights. 

Besides, Merlin stayed the night too, sitting in his office. He did not stop observing the cameras and searching for any traces of SPECTRE and their loyal men hidden round the globe. 

However shite mood she was in, all he had to do was to say thanks for a cup of coffee she had made him, and it all became quite brighter. 

And he did not even protest when she coerced him to take a break—it wasn’t like aliens would suddenly decide it was time to prove _Doctor Who_ Christmas specials correct and come to Earth—and sit with her on the couch. Not at all.

If she moved a little too close when she confessed of all the monstrosities she had done and seen, he did not protest either. He listened to her until he fell asleep. 

He woke up a few minutes? hours? later with Roxy’s head resting against his shoulder and a fuzzy blanket covering their dozing forms. Was it Percival?

 

Still, it was the Holmeses who received the biggest shock when Q told them they were expecting at least twenty people for dinner, most of whom being spies from MI6 or this one service no one has ever heard of, just like that, or of the blue. Matter-of-factly. 

Of course, it came to talking about work. Q could no longer keep his job secret; he had to tell his parents where exactly he worked. For whom.

Mrs Holmes nearly fainted, hearing it wasn’t just Mycroft but Andrew too.

And then again, hearing James was a spy with a licence to kill, Mary Watson no different and actually the best of them all, and John, Sherlock, and Mycroft had known. 

When Father made Q and James describe what had actually happened during Second V-Day, she got up and poured herself a drink.

This was, by all means, the strangest and most stressing Christmas she has ever experienced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise for a boring chapter. Even I can see it's bad... but I needed things said. I express lots of my headcanons in this fic, and Q's anxiety is one of them. All the thoughts.


	13. Eleven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. This is a long chapter, but fluff ahead!

She was not that far from the truth.

Mother took the bottle of brandy and brought it to the living room on a tray, along with some glasses. The clever woman poured everyone a shot. (Q didn’t know they owned so many brandy glasses.)

He thought he could really use a drink, so he took one and knocked it back. James, who sat on the sofa next to him, spurred him on to pass him a glass too, but Q said no. Alcohol, and anything heavy for that matter, was inconsistent with cyanide.

“You could die, James,” he said, hoping it would be enough of a warning. James grunted but listened to him for once.

Sherlock and Irene didn’t drink either.

Father turned to Q. “Let me get this clear one more time—you’ve stopped that neurological wave that turned everyone on the globe violent. You, alone. And this terrorist organisation called Spectrum we’ve never heard of was behind that all—”

“SPECTRE,” Q corrected him automatically.

“Yes, SPECTRE. And only thanks to you, the Earth has survived as it did, and none of us here was influenced.” He still could not believe it. He still had doubts about the truthfulness of all that.

Q sighed and poured himself two more fingers of the brandy. He hated inquiries as such.

“Yes, Father,” he answered before he knocked back the second drink. The glass’s rim hid a minute smile that formed on his face because that was exactly what had happened. He had stopped it. He.

However, the guilt and sorrow were still there, in his eyes. That would _never_ disappear.

“Son, I don’t know what to say. I am very proud of you and angry with you at once.”

“I can’t believe it either,” Mother joined in, “that you kept all of this secret from us for years!”

“It was for your s—”

“Don’t you say safety, because that has been on the table before. We are the ones to protect you, and we have the right to know where our children spend their days!” She looked at James. “Or with whom!”

Now, that was too much. She could blame him for everything as she wished, but she won’t touch James. The two of them were untouchable.

“Mother,” Q said calmly despite the rising anger, “this is a matter of national security, personal affairs aside. Do you have any idea what danger you’d be in if someone found out how extensive your connections to the highest-ranking MI6 personnel are? Because I do.”

 _They must not know, that way it’s safer for everyone,_ that was what he has been telling himself since he started his job at SIS. _If they won’t know, they won’t ask questions, and nothing can be compromised. By my feelings or otherwise. They will go on with their peaceful lives, having enough concern about Mycroft and Sherlock. And M won’t have to be concerned about them any more than he already is._

“And as far as my love life is concerned, it’s not like you’ve ever asked!” The tone of his voice was no longer so composed. Q slammed his glass down on the table harder than he intended. His look was rigorous. “This has to remain secret. You know _nothing_ , do you understand? You don’t know about my and James’ job or V-Day, and you never have.”

_As you were supposed to. As you have until I messed up._

Maybe it would be better if they truly have not. He had access to Kingsmen’s amnesia darts. He could, so to say, reverse time and act like these past few minutes have never happened.

James put his hand on Q’s shoulder. He backed him up. “Don’t mention any of this to anyone who isn’t in this room right now. No one knows that you know. Do not disclose any details about our job on no account.”

The parents were silent. Irene glanced at James. “No fear, handsome, living in the world of secrets and conspiracies was an integral part of my job. I know how to keep my mouth shut,” she said. Then there was a flash of danger in her piercing eyes. “As well as wide open.”

As long as they do not mess with her and her child, they have nothing to worry about from her side, Q deduced. He wouldn’t be so certain about Sherlock, though. His brother just loved to talk, no moral boundaries included.

He gazed at his brother and parents, raising a questioning eyebrow.

They nodded, lips pressed together. That nonverbal response was enough for him.

“I’m glad we come to terms with each other. It means a lot to all of us,” Q said. He was calm again, and sincerity outright spread from his words like a spell. He got up. “Thank you. And now, I could appreciate a long shower and some rest.”

When the tension had dropped, he could feel how much tired he was. It was as if fatigue was punching him in the face over and over until everything hurt. His anxiety did not really help it.

Mother’s face suddenly melted. She still was concerned about his health, despite everything she had heard him say.

“Go, go, son, why are you still bothering with us!” She looked at James again—not so fondly. “And you’ll let him sleep, young man, or you will regret you’ve ever set foot in this house!”

James couldn’t do anything else but smirk and add a comment, “What will you do, give me a spanking?” Mrs Holmes’ eyes could burn a hole through his head, but there was something familiarly playful in them, too. Q didn’t learn his bantering abilities out of thin air, after all. “He is my sex slave, and he has to do everything I tell him to, _every night_ , and today is no exception.”

Q rolled his eyes. Irene chuckled (Q had decided he liked his sister-in-law so far). Mother looked like she truly might deliver a smack to him now. Nevertheless, her lips stretched into a very thin smile too. She pattered Q’s shoulder and let them both go to the upstairs bathroom.

James took Q’s hand and squeezed it.

“I hate you, 007,” Q whispered, walking up the narrow staircase.

“Oh, do you? Right in the feels!”

Q let go of James’ hand and nudged his side roguishly—but James flinched and hissed with pain. Q completely forgot he had caught a nasty kick in that spot. “That did hurt.”

“Sorry. But I still hate you.”

“You don’t say.” James snickered again. It hurt. Then he coughed.

Q rolled his eyes again; it almost was audible. James kissed his cheek and turned round the bannister. They went up one more storey, and walked to the largest bathroom the house had. Q raised no objections when James just happened to crawl inside after him.

 

When his partner began to take off his suit piece by piece, he also stripped off his shoulder holster and placed it on a chest of drawers next to the bath. His gun was still in it, intact.

“The Walther. I’m returning it in tip-top state, loaded,” he said and pulled it out. He released the magazine containing two bullets. Then, he pulled the breech, and the last bullet fell into his hand. He put it all next to the holster, looking at Q. “You still haven’t shown me your room and made love to me on your bed.”

He stepped closer to Q, who was wearing nothing more than his trousers now. Of course, James noticed his creased shirt and jumper hanging on a peg on the door and, undoubtedly, wanted to note something about the poor care of his clothes. However, he did not. Probably because he did not want to ruin the atmosphere—if there was an atmosphere to ruin.

Q wanted to avoid showing James the room, because he really didn’t look forward to the caustic remarks about the posters on the walls and his university years music taste. But a promise was a promise, and there was no other available room anyway.

James grabbed Q by his waist and pulled him close, skin to shirt. Q swallowed hard and blinked once or twice. James cocked his head and an eyebrow, asking _well?_

“You can have whatever you want, love,” Q pressed a quick kiss to his lips, “tomorrow.”

He broke out of James’ hold and continued in pulling down his trousers. Underneath them, he was wearing a pair of very colourful hipster boxers James always thought for ugly. He had bought those on purpose.

“But you are supposed to deliver on your promise as soon as you can, are you not?” James untucked his own shirt and unbuttoned it. He still wouldn’t give up, even in his condition.

(Anyway, he seemed to get a lot better recently…)

“James, do you really need me to list all the reasons why the only way of me sleeping with you tonight will be the literal one?”

He was used to staying up long or not sleeping at all for a few days, but today was different. Too tragic, too stressful, too exhausting. He hadn’t done so much work in one day in a long, long time. His eyelids were heavy with sleep, and if he doesn’t go to bed within half an hour, he’ll fall asleep on his feet.

Q hung the trousers on another peg. He bent to take off his socks, quite unable not to watch James’ exposed chest, tanned but covered in scars and bruises. He was used to seeing that sight often, every time he had come back from a mission, yet now, there were more of them; it was marked forever.

He took off the boxers, too, and yawned. James caught the yawn from him immediately—but he nearly vomited again. He had to lean on the chest of drawers to gain stability and take a breath. It pained Q to see him like that, sick and vulnerable.

He walked to the bath, passing James. The agent had folded his clothes in neat piles, unlike Q.

Q placed his glasses next to the dismantled gun. Doing so, his body brushed against James’ wounded side, which caused him to groan again.

“I’m sorry,” Q said. He kissed that one mole on his shoulder he really really loved (he loved them all; every part of his body) softly in an apology and stroked his gorgeous arse. That always worked. And he honestly couldn’t stop himself from doing it.

He slipped into the bath and turned the hot water tap nearly on maximum. He needed exactly the temperature that will make his skin go bright pink and warm him to the bones. Steam rose to the ceiling instantly.

James got in only a moment later, and drew the curtain closed.

 

Being naked in front of each other other than in bed had ceased to be an issue. They often showered together—it helped to save water, right? They could only enjoy it. Embrace each other, stand under the shower, let hot water run down their bodies. Wash off the blood, sweat, dirt, and guilt. Just stand there and not move, after everything they have been through.

James was standing behind Q, giving a massage to his temples. His calloused fingers were kneading his aching muscles exactly the way Q loved. Then he took a bottle of shampoo and started to wash his hair and the events of the day with it. Q knew he loved his hair, playing with it, touching it—so he let him. It was relaxing. He could close his eyes.

“It’s over. It’s good now. It’s over,” he heard someone say, and he wasn’t sure if it were real James or the phantom.

After many painful hours, he finally managed to turn his brain off and feel good. He was oblivious to the outside world. He sensed only James’ strong but gentle hands, the steam, and the small bubble it created around them. He took a deep breath and inhaled the strong lemon and mint scent of the shampoo, and the warmth of the water flowing down his chest.

And then James stopped massaging his head and extracted his fingers out of Q’s dark, curly hair. He put them on his shoulders. Q shivered under the touch.

“Feeling better now, Andrew?” he whispered. He ran his hands down Q’s arms and stopped at the elbows.

“Yes, much better,” Q exhaled, “but all soap in the world can’t wash away the blood of all the people I couldn’t have saved. It’s like it stuck to my skin and wouldn’t go down. Wouldn’t bloody go down.”

He still has not opened his eyes—and that made it all worse. If he just opened them wide and embraced the reality of the bath, white tiles, and the man behind him, he wouldn’t relapse into the endless projection of all the horrendous images on his eyelids again and again.

“Then let _me_ wash it away,” replied James. He took a different bottle of shower gel and a loofah he had found at the back of the bath. Q crossed his arms on his chest, nearly hugging his back, and leant into James. He let him rub it all off.

He practically fell asleep under James’ care. His skin was red and burning from the hard scraping, yet there was something oddly calming and relieving in that. It was just James, he, and the bath. Nothing more.

 

Now he knew that _this_ was what he had needed. Showering, switching his mind off, sleeping—and a few snifters of brandy to his credit. Not huddling in a lonely, depressive corner with a whole bottle. Not rough fucking until his knuckles go white as he clutches at the mattress and he feels nothing but sweat, utter exhaustion, and the rapture of orgasm.

He had had days of both. Every time he had handled a physically and emotionally demanding mission, and fear and remorse circulated in his veins, he had come home to James, and one way or another, they had ended up in bed. Sometimes they cuddled up with their cats under the duvet and watched cheesy romcoms on telly, sometimes they drank and fucked until they had forgotten.

 

Frankly, he couldn’t imagine how James must have felt. He had killed, destroyed, liquidated. He had almost got poisoned by cyanide. He had thrown up two days’ worth of food and liquids; he had coughed until he suffocated. And yet here he was, washing him, while it should have been the other way around, and still holding his wits and charms.

Q couldn’t imagine how he was capable of that. How could he remain ever so tranquil; keep all the nightmares inside of him; not go mad of it? Q _had_ seen James lose it several times, but only for a few instants, and then he was fine again.

 

James stopped rubbing Q’s shoulders and back. “Better?” he asked again.

“A lot.”

James soaped himself too. He scraped dried blood and sweat off his aching body, and then he rinsed the loofah out. He leant forward to take the shower attached to the wall in front of Q. Their bodies pressed tight against each other.

A wave of arousal travelled through Q. For a split second, visions of their first kiss, first date, first sex replaced the ones of V-Day, and he felt it all again. The buzzing energy at the end of his fingertips, the bliss. It awoke his sleeping body. It felt splendid.

It was just that attraction spell James cast at everyone who had got too close to him.

The feeling multiplied when he smiled and pressed a lingering kiss on Q’s cheek. Fuck.

Q really tried not to blush. He really tried not to think of James’ hand wrapped round his waist, his defined chest against his back, and _oh_ his cock on his buttocks.

He really tried not to think of thinking of turning around, kissing him hard until they both cannot catch their breath, and pressing him against the dewy tiles with his own body. He really tried not to think of where that would end up. He really was tired. He didn’t want today to be a day of the second option.

But his heart and body thought otherwise. His cock demanded otherwise.

So he did just that. His lips caught James’ in a wet, hot, deep kiss. James opened his mouth, invited him to play. He pulled Q’s lower lip inside, sucking at it. He gave it a few love bites, and Q left him with a few, too. Their tongues swirled around each other, and their lips were fervid.

He put his hands round James’ neck; one slipped into his wet, blond hair. James let go of the shower—it fell into the bath with a clank—and wrapped himself closer round Q. He held him by his waist, and the other arm caught his left bottom cheek. His nails dug into his skin, leaving red marks on it. He kissed him as though it were the last time.

Q was fully awake now. Nothing beyond him and James existed. They were the centre of the universe. They, and their pounding hearts.

Q pulled away for an instant, gasping for breath. But letting go hurt. He did not want to take his hands or mouth off because he could not believe it wasn’t all a dream he’d wake up from if he did so—that James was solid, real, with him, that he did not die. He was pulling in for more and more pecks and kisses. They made him forget.

Resting his forehead against James’, Q did the other thing he was trying not to think about. He moved their bodies and pressed them to the wall, James’ back against the white tiles. He kissed him again.

He lost himself in him completely. His mind was… empty. Their heartbeat, breath, lips, hardening cocks—centre of the universe.

Until he came back to Earth because that was wrong. He couldn’t use James like that, as a means of seeking oblivion. He was sick, Q had to remind himself. It would be wrong. He had to face his problems for real. He had to come back to reality. The momentary pleasure was not worth risking James might actually collapse.

Q pulled away. “We can’t,” he gasped, breathless. His lips were hot, red, and swollen.  

He let go of James’ neck. When his partner got the message and released him, he picked up the shower and rinsed the rest of the foam off his body. He shook the water out of his hair, undrew the curtain, and stepped out of the bath, on a green rug in front of it. James just stood there without a move.

Q took two towels and wrapped one round his waist. He used the other one to dry his hair. It looked like a thatch of soggy hair sticking to all sides, then. James loved it. Q didn’t care. All the pleasant emotions were gone.

 

James did not move a bit and still was watching Q dry his hair. He was transfixed, because Q was more than beautiful.

He had put his glasses back on, which gave him a few extra years. It always did. Without his spectacles, Q did not look 35 at all. He did not look that _with_ them either, though he still looked a little older.

When they first met, James had joked about his age. In the course of time, he found out how awfully wrong he had been about both the number and his competency for the job. Andrew Holmes was the brightest genius James had known. (Regardless of his entire family, that is.)

Sometimes, in scarce moments, he did not apprehend him completely. Q was unpredictable in every respect—and that was one of the reasons for being so fascinated by him, and later falling in love so hard. The mysteriousness, unintelligibility.

James chuckled, seeing the same genius run around the bathroom in a striped towel round his waist and look for pyjamas he had clearly forgotten to bring with him. He pulled away from the wall and finished his shower.

It did not do without a coughing fit. There was blood, this time. It pained him when the blood mixed with gastric juices travelled up his gullet. Q ran to him immediately and supported him with his hands. He asked if he was alright. Of course he bloody wasn’t. Though, it passed.

Damn it, Q was right when he said they couldn’t, despite how much he—they both—wanted it. As usual. Q was right about everything, and James just wouldn’t listen. It was his game.

James got out of the bath. The green rug was unpleasantly wet and cold now, but what could he do. He looked around and took the very towel Q used for his hair because he had no idea where he could find a clean one. He didn’t want to ask.

In the meantime, Q unlocked the door, walked outside, and closed them again.

He got back roughly two minutes later, dressed in grey trackie bottoms and a black T-shirt with the _Star Wars_ logo print. Obviously, he had to wear those all the time. James liked it, secretly. He liked—no, loved—Q’s peculiar taste in films and TV programmes.

He was carrying a pair of pyjamas for him, too.

James did not bother with a towel. He hung it on a rod in the wall and stood there with nothing on. There was no reason for him to be ashamed.

But: “Put this on, you don’t want to walk around the house stark naked,” Q said and threw it to him. He opened the mirror cabinet and took a toothbrush. James wondered how come he had a toothbrush in there when he hadn’t been in the house for ten years.

“Do you mind all of a sudden?” replied James with a grin.

Q rolled his eyes at him, looking in the mirror. “No, I don’t, but the rest of my family might,” he answered with the toothbrush in his mouth. It added to the hilariousness of the scene.

He put the pyjamas—navy blue trousers and a white T-shirt—on very slowly and temptingly so Q would see what he had missed. Not that he didn’t know. Not that he was fit enough for shagging.

Q suppressed the urge to roll his eyes again. James’ grin widened. That was the purpose.

Still brushing his teeth, Q said Mycroft had come home. James couldn’t miss the fact he had said home, not _the house_. He replied with an _oh._ Q spat out the toothpaste and rinsed his mouth out, first with water and then with mouthwash. He did not put the tube back inside the cabinet and just pulled out another toothbrush for him. It had been Mrs Holmes to put them there, then.

“Mother is very thorough when it comes to visits,” Q explained sans the actual question. He picked up all of his clothes. He threw the underwear and shirt into a laundry basket hidden in a closet. After he closed it, he took James’ garments as well and again disappeared in another room without a word. His room, probably.

He didn’t say anything else about his brother, either.

James took the toothbrush and squeezed some toothpaste on it. Brushing his teeth, he stared at his reflection in the misted mirror. It was a humdrum activity, really, and the blinding white light of the strip light above the cabinet did not make it any better; he felt like his mind was being scrutinised by a poking probe of the light.

He kept coming back to what he had seen, witnessed, done. He saw it in his own eyes. He kept coming back to the ghosts of his past, reminding him of all he had caused for good and the country and for what he told himself to be the good but only conduced to more damage, and of everyone he had lost—Vesper, M—and he so desperately did not want Q to be one of those people.

Then he saw him standing behind him, and he came back to reality. He must have sneaked inside without his notice (he was probably the only one who could do that). He approached him and put his arms round his waist from behind.

“You going to bed?” Q asked, and yawned. James felt his mint breath on his neck.

James bent down slightly and spat the toothpaste. “In a moment,” he said. He looked in the mirror once again and took a swig of the green, mint-flavoured mouthwash. Straight out of the bottle, which made Q shake his head in disbelief. James always did that.

“Okay.”

Q’s embrace did not loosen. He held him until he was done with his teeth, warming him with his body—and his very existence. Watching in case he suffered a fit of cough again.

 

They left the warm and steamy bathroom and continued further along the corridor. Their feet were making muffled creaky sounds on the wood under the carpet. Q’s bedroom was the last door on the left. Before they entered, Q stopped and looked James in the eye.

“Do not freak out,” he warned him. James didn’t know why he should—it was only Q’s bedroom.

He shrugged, and Q opened the white, wooden door wide and switched on the light.

Q turned out to be right. There was something to freak out about indeed.

James thought Q couldn’t surprise him anymore, but he was proven to be wrong. The first thing to catch his sight were many, many rock posters taped to the walls. Iron Maiden, Metallica, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Guns n’ Roses, Megadeth, Nirvana, Genesis—and those were only those he could see and recognise. They were everywhere, sometimes supplemented by photographies, quotations, certificates and diplomas, blueprints, and insides of various electronic devices in frames.

Q and hard music, that was what he thought for an impossible combination. And yet:

“Posters? Really, Q?”

“A shock, isn’t it?” answered Q nonchalantly. He took his and James’ bags lying on the bed and moved them in front of the wardrobe to make space. “I meant what I said.”

And there weren’t just posters, there were CDs and vinyl, too. His bookshelves were full of them. He walked to them and looked at the spines, books and music alike. When he counted eight Metallica albums, he stopped it. It was a little too much to process.  

“I must say you have surprised me, Q. I would never take you for that type of a bloke.”

“Having prejudice against my music taste, 007?” he sighed. He must have hated questions like that. He looked at James again. “And it’s not like you’ve ever asked.”

That was… painfully true. They did not listen to music at home, usually. They did not talk about such banalities, usually.

“You’ve never said anything,” James said. “You’ve never objected to my radio station choices.”

That was true, too. They did listen to the radio in the car, and Q didn’t mind anything they were playing. Classical music, Adele, Backstreet Boys. As long as it wasn’t Taylor Swift; James would retune the radio himself then.

“I’m adaptable,” Q mumbled. He took his messenger bag and fished his mobile out of it. He started to type. James walked over to the bed and lay down in it, gesturing for Q to follow him. His partner was fully absorbed in the text he was writing, though, thus he didn’t see him.

“So, did you wear black clothes and spikes, too?” James asked jokingly. He tried to picture the cardigan-wearing boffin in black leather or whatever do people like he wear. Honestly, he couldn’t.

“You really wish to know, don’t you, James?” Q sent the message and turned off the mobile. “Find it out yourself. I am sure you can find a way—you do work for an intelligence agency, after all.”

He laid it on the nightstand and went to turn the light off. Darkness swallowed the bedroom, and the only beacon of light was a Darth Vader alarm clock informing them of the unpleasant fact it was 3:41 AM.

Suddenly, the weight of a body sat down on the empty half of the (small) bed, and Q slipped under the duvet next to James. Their bodies were tight against each other—but that only meant more cuddling and snogging in the morning.

They were both silent for a while until James noted, “So you basically are the blonde from _Arrow_.” He smiled, even though Q couldn’t see it in the dark. “A dark hacker whose hacker boyfriend gets in trouble, so she suddenly wears colours and commands a team of agents.”

“Felicity? She was a goth, that’s different. Besides, I certainly know more about engineering than she does. Although—I have always had a soft spot for Oliver,” Q grinned. James could hear it. Then he turned to face him, and James could see hazy outlines of his beautiful face. His eyes were closed.

James wanted to punch him in the face with a pillow for that remark. “Oh, you should’ve told me you loved someone else, Q, and I’m just a compensation. You could have saved me the torture of a one-sided relationship,” he said, deadpan.

“Shut up.” To his surprise, it was Q who punched him with a pillow, if lightly. “Arse.”

“You’ve declared a war on me, Q, you know that. You’re not getting out of this easily.”

James took a different pillow that lay behind his back and returned the hit. Q groaned sleepily. “James, we must sleep, it’s nearly four,” he said. They should. They were getting up at eight. But _he_ was the one to start this.

Q grabbed the pillow and put it under his head to keep it away from James. Then he took the other one as well, and did the same. The little bastard.

James rolled on his stomach. The bed was so small, Q had to roll too, involuntarily. One of James’ legs was on Q’s, and their chests were touching. He was still clutching to the pillows. Nevertheless, he managed to grab the lowest one—now, the forces were balanced. But he could always ensure a superiority.

“No, James, those are… my pillows!” Q protested, but he was close to laughter. As if he needed three of them to sleep on. Or two.

James caught the last small one; Q wouldn’t let go. He was oddly strong for the fact he had practically fallen asleep in the shower. So, the only thing left James could do was to roll fully on top of him and catch his mouth in a kiss.

Q gave in to the kiss and completely forgot to guard his pillows. James struck when he least expected it. He swiftly turned to the side and snatched the desired pillow from beneath Q’s head. Their lips separated.

“You can be manipulated so easily, Q,” James purred in his ear, very happy about his achievement, “that it’s quite unbelievable you work for an intelligence agency.”

He gave him one last peck before he got off him and nestled on his half of the bed, holding the number of three pillows. He couldn’t refrain from hitting Q in the side again once and twice, because this still was war. However, that had cost him one pillow, for sleepy Q still had quick reflexes.

He hugged it tight like it was his favourite plushie and turned away from James, facing the nightstand.

James straightened under his head the two pillows he had won, and rolled on his right side, copying Q. He let him have his pillows. He gave the battle up and snuggled closer. He put one arm round his waist and buried his face in the crook of his neck, breathing in the smell of the shampoo from his wet hair.

He pressed a soft kiss on his head. He whispered, “I love you, Andrew.” It wasn’t the first time he said those words.

“I hate you, James.” That wasn’t the first time, either. Third time in a week, actually.

“No, you don’t.”

“No.” After a short pause, he added, “I love you too.”

James’ mouth stretched in a smile, brushing against the back of his head. He received no reaction whatsoever. He knew Q fell asleep instantly, and he was glad for it, because if there were something Q needed at the moment, it was sleep.

He had feared he might keep musing on V-Day and nightmares might haunt him if he did. But he was in comfort, surrounded by love and safety. He could comfort him well enough; Q could rest in his arms peacefully. It was good. It was all good.

With that thought, James sealed his eyelids. Listening to the quiet, steady sound of breathing, he fell into the arms of Morpheus as well.

 

They both slept soundly for about four and a half hours until they heard an explosion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FELICITY aka my girl the third of my username I really think those two are alike
> 
> I'll be forever in love with metalhead!Q headcanon (and top!Q ;)), even if I'm the only one. Seriously. I love to imagine him loving this music!


	14. Twelve

Well, it was a very loud and deep bang that sounded like a landmine going off; they did not know what it was in reality. It came from someplace near the kitchen.

James and Q awoke with a jerk. Q’s eyes burst open, and he lifted his head from where it rested on James’ chest—sweaty chest, he noticed. The T-shirt was wet around the neckband, and so was James’ forehead. Nightmares must have haunted him in his sleep. They had haunted Q, too.

Explosions, gunfire, blood and gore, deaths, the powerlessness and inability to stop it accompanied every second of his sleep. But he was the Quartermaster of MI6; he was used to it. He could rarely enjoy the luxury of undisturbed sleep.

Their legs were intertwined. When one moved, the other had to as well. The muscles on James’ arms firmed up immediately. He sat up. His spy reflexes kicked in.

“What the fuck was that?” Q asked, half sleepy, half vigilant. He blinked repeatedly, gazing James in the eye as if his partner knew the answer. However, it was impossible and improbable for him to know it if Q did not.

“I’ve no idea, Q, but I don’t like it whatsoever.” He tossed the duvet aside and scrambled out of the bed. He growled, because his entire body ached, especially his side. It was painted black and blue.

Q was out of the bed first. His reflexes were quick, too. But his eyes were a tad slower. Only then he noticed it was light. “Shit, it’s 9 hours,” he said. “I’ve forgotten to set the bloody alarm clock.”

The brightness of the day peeked inside the bedroom through the blinds and gave it a wholly different tinge, grey and gloomy. James glanced at the Darth Vader clock. It was 9:12. They’ve overslept by over an hour. Bollocks.

It was light; it was another day they had to live through and face with a cool head. It was another painful day that would remind them of the crushing reality of what had happened. Nevertheless, they had to carry through. They were professionals. 

Q quickly grabbed his glasses and put them on. As a result of his rash behaviour, the frames were a little askew. He opened the door ajar and ran downstairs hastily. His heavy steps echoed through the house. He omitted putting on a pair of slippers—what for, they had carpets everywhere.

James caught up with him in the midst of the last flight of stairs. Having come to the foyer, they nearly bumped into the shining form of Irene Holmes who had emerged from the downstairs bathroom. She was wearing a wine-coloured dress without a single blemish, and her dark hair savoured of some kind of very strong, spicy fragrance.

“Good morning, Andrew, James,” she said, throwing her eyelashes around. “You two lover boys are finally awake.” She looked them up and down. Her gaze was quite displeasing, and smile smug. Then, she winked. “I heard what you’ve been doing all night.”

It was James’ turn to roll his eyes. “We haven’t.”

Q sighed. Did he toss and scream in his sleep? Did James? Could no one wake them up? The clock struck nine minutes ago, and if their guests followed the precise instructions he had messaged them, they had already arrived at the party.

As the unfamiliar jackets on the coat hanger by the door suggested, Q was right.

He refrained from explaining the reality of the night activities; it would be pointless. “Morning, Irene. What on earth is going on in here?” he asked, concerned. He tried to be as polite as he could after the rough waking.

Has he missed something? Was there an explosive? Was it gas? Was it a planned attack? Were they in danger? Were SPECTRE’s remaining tentacles plotting evil plans so as to wipe MI6 and everyone associated with the service off this earth?

The Woman made a beeline for the kitchen, and the pair followed. “Your secret agent friends are cooking,” she explained in a tone that suggested that statement actually did explain the situation—did it? (And she spoke of the fact there were secret agents in the house so openly, despite what Q had said, and so unashamed! How daring! Q needed to tell her something, but he didn’t, in the end.)

“Did someone put peas into a pressure cooker?” James replied. He probably thought that was funny and invigorating.

However, it was the right question. Q could scent burning smell and a strange, metallic whiff mixed with the lovely smell of fried bacon and eggs. Something _has_ happened. The worry did not go away; it only increased with every pace.

“James, that’s only a superstition, a pressure cooker cannot explode,” Q corrected his partner. The corrections were habitual. He was used to ordering people around from work, where it looked very alike, only even seemingly safe objects like pressure cookers sometimes exploded if one made a mistake. “Not because of legumes, that is,” he added.

“It was the microwave oven, actually,” Irene said. Oh. Those could go off quite easily, Q thought. He has had some experience. And if it didn’t go off, there was smoke at any rate.

They entered the living room and acknowledged Mother with Rosie in her arms, Lestrade on the sofa (Mycroft was nowhere to be seen), Alec Trevelyan picking at gingerbread men with fluorescent icing, and 009 with Q’s cousin in his lap in an armchair. Mother was rushing to the epicentre of the accident; they seemed to be completely unbothered by it.

“Good morning,” James said politely, even though the morning was nowhere near good, so far; it would need an honest miracle to reach the point of normality. He smiled at the little girl in a red jumper. She was holding a toy in her tiny hands. She did not smile back.

They all said their good-mornings. Q and James received a few raised eyebrows and glances, probably for the pyjamas. Everyone was wearing fancy clothes, whereas they still were the only ones in their creased sleeping robes, and dishevelled. Moreover, they were used to seeing them—James in particular—in befitting, tailored suits only, so such sight must have seemed odd to them.

“Good morning, Mother,” Q repeated, and paused. He pondered about the aptness of his next words. But it was a now-or-never situation. “Look, I am sorry for yesterday; I raised my voice at you inappropriately.”

_But you undoubtedly know what do the occurrences of the day mean to me, what they had cost me. I was down again; at my lowest. You are my mother. You can understand I cannot control it._

Admitting it, if never aloud, he felt the guilt and pressure emerge from the back of his mind and stick into his psyche like a needle. Would it _ever_ go away? Would it get better? Would the red alarm shouting _your fault your fault your fault_ every time he thought of V-Day fade away?

With James, he could _forget_ , but not _erase it_.

Mother looked sympathetically at him. She patted his back gently. It did not really help. “There is nothing to apologise for, son. We know it was terrible for you.” She did not say what. Q knew what. Everything. Besides, they’ve promised not discussing it in front of the others. “And you should have seen what happened after you’d left.”

“Be glad you haven’t,” replied Greg. He was frowning. Judging by his reserved position on the couch and puffy, grey bags under his eyes, there was probably some sort of an argument going on. Was everything alright between him and Mycroft? Should it be alright? Or not alright?

They moved on. Mother pushed her way through between Mary and Eve in the doorway and entered the kitchen. Smoke has flooded the room from floor to ceiling.

“So, what sort of catastrophe have you wrought in here, for the love of God?” she asked, calmer than one would think. But being a mother to Mycroft, Sherlock, and Andrew Holmes prepares a woman for everything, apparently.

“And just so you’d known, we’ve waited with breakfast, but not with presents,” said Alec to Q when they were passing the sofa. He was munching on another biscuit. “The detective’s idea.”

Of course. Of course Sherlock would do something like that, and of course 006 would encourage him. It was a deeply convoluted conspiracy, no doubt.

Come to think of it, where was his brother? Q hasn’t seen him, or Mycroft and John, around.

Quickly abandoning the thought, Q finally managed to make it into the kitchen, and he finally saw the havoc in its true nature. It wasn’t just smoke, and the burnt smell—the microwave’s door was hanging on one hinge, and there was something that looked like lentil soup spilt all around it.

So, they weren’t in any present danger in the form of nuclear missiles hidden under the ground, then. Most likely; the odds of an attack on a house full of spies and government workers were still rather high.

Q sincerely hoped Mother will not ask him to repair the oven instead of disposing of it. He hated microwave ovens. After a three-minute roast in radio waves, the dish was completely deprived of nutrients and became rather unwholesome, and besides, it was always too hot and too cold at the same time. No sane person should even go near that thing, he thought, let alone should they have it in their house.

Harry Hart, wearing a bright white shirt, suit trousers, and Mother’s apron, was dancing around the cooker. He was frying pancakes with one hand and scrambling ham and eggs with the other while guarding sizzling, brown sausages on a third pan. The boyfriend of his—Eggsy, right?—was wiping the floor with an orange rug. R was scouring something in the sink. Father was sitting at the table and reading the morning paper without giving a damn about the microwave. Q wasn’t sure whether he approved of his approach or not.

The window was open wide despite the snowy chill crawling inside, because the smoke was necessary to get out. Everyone coughed every now and then. It reminded Q that James shouldn’t even be there. It was too dangerous for his respiratory tract.

Then he realised he hasn’t seen Scarlet anywhere, either. The fear he held for his agents grew stronger, blooming in his stomach. He broke out in a cold sweat. He felt the need to run upstairs and call her immediately. He was not aware of any replied calls. He wished she were alright and not lying somewhere at the ICU or, God forbid, deceased.

Normally, the fear would be irrational, as he knew and was told all the time, but this time, it certainly was not. He had every right to worry. He hated not being aware of his agents’ whereabouts or medical condition. One would say he’d get used to it after years of service at MI6, but on the contrary, it only became worse and worse, just as the missions became more dangerous and difficult every time.

He glanced at Father’s _Times_. The front page talked merely about Second V-Day, and so did the rest of the newspaper. Naturally. He should have expected nothing less, nothing more. On the front page was a dark, macabre photograph of a fucking _body_ lying on the road that made one question the moral integrity of the paper’s owners and editors.

That beacon was back. _Your fault your fault your fault._

He coughed, too. He had to put his hand over his mouth.

R noticed his arrival and turned to him and his mother. “Morning, boss. Love your pyjamas,” the young brunette with red glasses said with a smile. Her eyes showed she did not mean it, though. Q raised a questioning eyebrow at her, demanding an explanation since no one else would give them one explicit enough.

“You know, boss, some _idiot_ ,” she glanced at the Kingsman agent squatting on the floor, “forgot a spoon in his soup, which I refuse to apprehend, because firstly, who warms their soup in a microwave when the cooker has four burners and then forgets _the spoon_ in it? Secondly, who eats lentil soup for breakfast?”

She continued cleaning a porcelain bowl energetically with a wire wool. Eggsy lifted his head and looked at her. Q couldn’t see his expression.

“Mistakes happen, Christina, okay?” he said with his natural London accent. He spoke differently when on missions, Q observed.

He did not seem to register the fact he had destroyed the microwave after using it once in a house he was a guest in. Nonetheless, Mother did not seem to be very irate. She had had a lot with her sons when they were little, after all. Q remembered all those explosions she had to clean up after him. The experience with making TNT was still quite vivid.

So many memories resurfaced suddenly; he forced them back inside his subconscious like a drawer sliding shut.

Eggsy got up, washed out the rug, and wiped the rest of the soup. R frowned once more and turned to Harry, who turned off one burner. He put the pan with the eggs aside and tossed a pancake. At least someone knew how to cook properly (and be a gentleman).

“And thirdly, what utterly grown up and responsible idiot lets him do it and doesn’t notice?”

Christina’s stony, striking eyes pierced a hole through Harry’s head. She, unlike Mother, was very serious about it—she felt responsible for this kitchen and this breakfast as much as for her agents and technicians at Q-Branch. She demanded no less than a report, and Harry and Eggsy better give her one.

Harry poured a ladle of dough for the sixteenth pancake on the pan. “Ms Gallopp, although I work… where I work, I don’t have ten eyes, and I can’t keep abreast of everything that happens around me. In fact, I can be glad I have _two_ eyes at all,” he said bitterly. “I am sure Eggsy will apologise to Mrs Holmes and compensate for the damage; that is all we can do about it, and excuse me, but I have some pancakes to fry.”

“Do not lose much sleep over it, Ms Gallopp, Mr Hart!” Mother replied. She waved her hand over the broken door. The drawer opened again, and Q recalled the times he was twelve. He had put some volatile compounds in an evaporation dish in the oven, and then their kitchen had almost ceased to exist. “We are wont to accidents as such in this household, believe me. Having born and raised four extraordinary children with minds as unique, I’ve got quite the experience.”

 “I sincerely apologise for caused damage, Mrs Holmes,” Eggsy said. He tore the door out of the last hinge it was swinging on, and putting it at the top of it, he lifted the oven. “Where shall I take this, ma’am?”

“Leave it be, dear, Daddy will gladly take it to the closet. He is getting _bored_.”

She emphasised the last word to make sure he registers the message. He was so engrossed in his newspaper, he did not hear a word of the conversation. Now, he cocked his head and lay the paper aside. Obediently, he got up. The chair made a squeaky sound against the tiles.

“Ah, yes, of course. Step aside, boy.”

“Don’t be silly, Mr Holmes; I can clean up my mess,” he said. He wouldn’t let anyone else do things for him, may they be younger or older. He stepped forward with the intention to go to the hallway.

Mother backed out of the kitchen, leading the way. “Here, here, I’ll show you, Gareth,” she gestured at the stairs. The women were already out of the way; Q and James had to step aside. James began to cough strongly—it was appropriate to leave the smoke-filled space immediately.

“It’s Gary,” Q heard him say. Gareth was someone entirely else.

Speaking of Gareths, “I think we should head upstairs and change before Eve takes a picture and sends it to M,” Q whispered. “Since the catastrophe requiring the prompt assistance of 007 and the Quartermaster is averted, and all.”

“You’ve taken those words out of my mouth, Andrew,” replied James with a cough. As soon as the path was unoccupied, he strode to the staircase. His steps weren’t nearly as level and flowing as usually.

The wounds notwithstanding, he took two steps at a time to get upstairs and take the embarrassing pyjamas off as quickly as possible. Q did not grasp the need for such rush; the room will not vanish into the void within the next twenty seconds, and neither will the food.

However, he ran after him, huffing quietly. His cheeks were rosy by the time he reached his room. James’ upper half was already disrobed, and the view of his damaged torso full of unsound colours punched Q in the eye. He flinched when James hissed with pain while rummaging through his bag.

It was always like this after missions, though rarely as intense. Q’s insides hurt for him, syphoned the pain and misery, twisted.

After a brief pause in the doorway, Q stepped in. Three steps were sufficient for reaching the holdall stacked under his bed. He took some clothes chosen at random—deep blue trousers and necktie, white shirt, and red cardigan—but then he assessed the colour combination for somewhat immoderate, and so he switched the cardigan for a brown one with blue stripes round the neck and buttons. It would be a better match to the slacks, that for certain.

He said nothing on the matter of James’ condition. His slow movements spoke for themselves. That was a constant in his life as well as his very presence. Always there, always freshly wounded, always broken yet ineluctable.

Before he changed his clothes, Q sat on the undone bed and checked his inbox for any replies to the message he had sent. Upon the discovery of three missed calls and five texts, he frowned. He hated being out of touch, and knew the senders did as well.

One, too extensive, message was from Bill; he has apologised  for not being able to come albeit he and his family wished they could attend at least four times. Merlin had sent another one, saying he, and by he, he meant himself, Lancelot, and Percival, must stay at HQ and deal with the bureaucracy around the circumstances of Second V-Day. Mallory said essentially the same. And thank Lord, there were two messages from 004.

 _I’m ok, no need to worry, Q._ Delivered 3:05 AM.

 _Taken my meds. I should arrive by noon._ Delivered 7:26 AM.

Q sighed in relief. He was not quite certain whether it was justified; Double-Ohs were masters of lies and disguise. He will call her after breakfast, just in case.

He tossed the mobile on the duvet and lay back. He stretched his arms, thus his hands were touching the cold wall behind his head. He closed his eyes and let all the tension escape. His muscles loosened, and air left his lungs. He remained like that for minutes.

When he reopened his eyes and sat up with a yawn, James was already buttoning the cuffs on his immaculately straight, light blue shirt. They matched. He was looking at Q.

“What?” Q inquired. His glasses slid a centimetre down his nose.

James’ penetrating gaze scanned him. Sometimes the ogling was appealing; now it was merely irksome. “You’re beautiful, Andrew,” he said eventually. “All of you—your body,” he stepped closer, “your fingers,” he took his hands in his and pressed a kiss on each, “your hair,” his hand was in the dark mop of his hair now, “your long cock,” the other hand travelled along his inner thigh; it was electrifying, “your mouth,” he kissed him, and Q met him halfway. “I needed to had that said.”

There wasn’t much romanticism in their relationship. Those were rare words. They sounded oddly disquieting, actually. Q’s heart suddenly started to race, and he could feel it sinking in his stomach.

“And I should remedy the fact I don’t do that often enough.” He caressed his cheek. His hand lingered on his chin and squeezed it between two fingers. He gave him one more brief kiss. “Which I should, with our hazardous job.”

That was the most non-James-ish thing he has ever heard James Bond say. Though, he loved hearing such words coming out of that mouth. He could get used to it.

He could find no right reply to that.

So he just gave him the—probably—best kiss of his life (still very careful not to hurt him). “Yes, you probably should. And so should I,” _because you are utterly correct. We live under constant uncertainty of what may or may not occur. Nothing is ever set or predestined. We should grace ourselves with sweet little things every now and then._ “Because so do I. Need to have it said. I am utterly and completely in love with you, and it’s one of the best things that has ever happened to me.”

“One?”

“Don’t get that cocky, James. _One_.”

James opened his mouth to deliver a remark, but he was interrupted by Harry shouting the pancakes, and therefore breakfast, were ready and Mother repeating it a second later, even louder. She also asked whether John has returned from shopping yet and told Mary to get those two in the garden. (She was speaking of Sherlock and Mycroft; they were absolutely smoking). 

“I suppose we have to continue in enunciating the sudden epiphanies later,” said Q. James stood up, and Q felt incomplete.

He stood up as well, and finally got dressed. James did not stare anymore, for he was preoccupied with fishing things out of his own suitcase. They were small presents, neatly wrapped in glossy, red paper. Q did not remember owning any.

His Christmas presents were not nearly as neat. He had bought most of them the day before yesterday and wrapped them in everything paper-like he could find, not excluding brown paper. Moreover, he hadn’t even got gifts for everyone—the party invitation was very a spontaneous deed.

James noticed Q mesmerising the boxes, perhaps a bit jealously.  “Envious of my wrapping paper, Q?” he joked. Q, truthfully, expected it. “And don’t forget to bring _your_ presents.”

“Don’t forget to take your medicine,” Q retorted. However, he probably _would_ forget. It was always like that with James Bond and medical treatment.

He buttoned the last button on his cardigan and did what he was told. He had to take a plastic bag to carry all the presents downstairs successfully—he had so many of them, they would probably scatter on the stairs as he’d walk down.

James took two kinds of pills and swallowed them dry.

That being done, they recollected the presents, and walked downstairs to join the rest of the family and friends at the breakfast table. But first, they placed the boxes under the tree, next to a surprising number of gifts for them, somewhat aesthetically, even.

According to traditions, they should unpack their presents before breakfast; however, Q thought that that would only bring a salvo of complaints from Harry, whose eggs had already got cold, upon them, so he decided they would give up on doing so this time, exceptionally.

While he and James were gone, someone had moved the table in the midst of living room and obtained everyone a piece of furniture to sit on—chairs, armchairs, stools, pouffes. Everybody was seated, and the last free places at the table (with actual, wooden chairs!) were waiting just for the two of them.

Q took a seat between Sherlock and Mycroft. He noticed how crammed with bowls and plates the table was; every possible breakfast food was on it: pancakes, marmalade and Nutella, toast with butter, jam, or ham and cheese, ham and eggs, porridge, cereal in milk, sausages, baked beans, fried tomatoes. It all looked absolutely mouthwatering.

James sat opposite of him, between Irene and Lestrade, and gave him a smile.

Mother announced they could start eating.

To be completely honest, Q did not know what to try first. He was starving. He looked at his empty plate, and then he looked at James’ for some inspiration—he knew he had already put half of the table on it. Well, almost. He could see a half of Harry’s lukewarm scrambled eggs with ham and one pancake with marmalade. Q decided to take one as well, and helped himself to three with jam of three different flavours. Then he had a fancy for a ham-and-cheese sandwich, so he took one as well. It was Christmas, was it not?

Q took a bite of the fresh, slightly toasted bread. He moaned blissfully. There was (almost) nothing better than melted butter, two slices of mature cheddar cheese, fresh, organic ham, rocket, and a touch of pepper inside a golden slice of toast in the morning after such gruelling day and night. That sandwich was R’s signature work. His assistant could open a gourmet bistro if she didn’t work for MI6, honestly.

“Splendid, Christina, absolutely splendid,” he said, emphasising his words with a raised thumb. R gave him a quarter of a smile—genuine, for the first time in an unpleasantly long time. Her smile could brighten the atmosphere instantly, though, it was rare.

“My pleasure, boss.”

People were swarming round the table, scooping the foods, taking the jars of jam from Q and giving them back, chattering with each other. They altogether seemed content and natural, as though for a short, solitary period of time, they all forgot about the circumstances of Christmas Eve.

If it weren’t for the occasional ringing of Mycroft or R’s mobile and subsequent apology, and getting up from their chairs to go outside and make the phone calls, normality would be very close to restoration.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello I know this is, like, shite and pointless, but we're coming to and end, and I promise you all of it does have an actual point. Also sorry for not-so-regular updates; I have to catch up on real life. I might finish this fic by the end of March, though!
> 
> (Microwave accident? Happened to me, just not with a spoon and soup, haha. IDK why I've put it in this... Guess I just needed something in the house to explode and not make this 20K words longer and let anyone die, which I would should it be a bomb as Q thought.)


	15. Thirteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go, last chapter! I promise lots of fluff!

At those explosive moments, everybody paused whatever they were saying and followed Mycroft, who did not apologise once, all the way to the front door with their scrutinising eyes. The lack of manners from his side irritated Mother.

He always disappeared for long minutes. His food was getting cold. Others tried not to mind the empty sopt at the table and pretend nothing was going on, although that was nearly impossible. The thoughts and theories of what he had discussed with God-knows-who could not be simply rewritten by the small talk going on round the table. No one needed ubiquitous reminders of the cataclysm—yet, they were on their minds and would not go away anywhere in the nearest future.

The worry for James and Scarlet had not gone away, either. Q had told himself he would call her after breakfast, but the fear bubbled in his stomach and stabbed his brain at every instant, making him inconceivably nervous. He shifted in his chair.

 

“Andrew, Mother was saying something,” Sherlock said. He drew Q’s wandering mind back to corporeality.

Q glanced at his brother first, then at Mother. Sherlock looked discontent, as he had to say the information repeatedly before catching his attention.

“Yes, Mother?” Q took a jar of marmalade and a knife. He was spreading it on a pancake absently while looking Mother in the eye.

“I was asking you and Sherlock if you’d help me with the turkey and potatoes,” she repeated her question, “and if anyone wants some eggnog.”

“It’s half past nine,” noted Q and rolled his pancake. He took a bite. The savoury, bittersweet taste of orange-and-ginger marmalade flooded his mouth as well as nostalgia.

But of course, no one was particularly concerned about the surprising news it was half past nine. They could enjoy a sip of an alcoholic beverage any time of the day, James especially.

“And yes, I will help you. I wouldn’t count with Sherlock, though,” he said with a full mouth.

“You are absolutely correct, brother,” Sherlock replied. His eyes leapt from Q to Mother. “My and Irene’s enforced presence in this castle of Christmas gaudiness is enough; I don’t have to stand at the cooker and watch beans cook to boot.”

“That was rude, Sherlock,” Father admonished him. Albeit, was used to their son’s sociopathic behaviour—all of their sons’, to a certain measure—and knew they couldn’t do anything about the way he treated other people.

Sherlock turned to his mother and said, “Sorry, Mother.”

He gave her a fake smile and returned to the eggs and two sausages piled on his plate. He would eat practically nothing hadn’t Irene slipped a half of a marmaladed toast slice and a frankfurter to him. He obediently polished it off.

 

Q couldn’t quite fathom Sherlock’s—and not just his, everyone’s—more or less casual attitude to his and James’ presence. They hadn’t been in contact for years with the exception of business meetings with Mycroft-The-British-Government, and his brother had forgotten to mention his own bloody wedding, yet now, they were acting like they were the perfect nuclear family.

Perhaps it was just a make-believe for the sake of rescuing Christmas, but one thing he was certain about—none of it was for him, and because of him. It was…artificial. Someone had put them up to it. Who, though? It definitely hadn’t been Mycroft.

Q was acting as naturally as he could bear, too, despite the painfulness of it. (If it was comforting in any way, he, at least, had access to an unlimited supply of the best homemade biscuits he knew.)

He took another bite of the pancake, too large to be considered appropriate in such company. He was observing James eating his eggs with due grace and elegance.

Mary got up to fetch Rosie some of the porridge. Seeing she was on her feet, Mother said, “Bring the eggnog from the fridge, will you, dear?”

“I thought you’d never ask, Elaine,” Mary grinned. She picked up the desired bowl of oats.

Q hadn’t heard someone call Mother by her actual name for a while. It sounded strange.

Mary walked away. She returned with a jug of yellowish, thick liquid. She laid it in the midst of the table. Mother thanked her and assumed it. She poured everybody who asked a glass. James requested her for being generous with it, and although he had always said eggnog was a ladies’ drink, he drunk a half of his glass instantaniously. He even licked off the yellow moustache above his lips.

Q had some of it as well, though not as much.

Mycroft had come back by then. He sat in his chair and finished up a sandwich. He must have currently been on a diet, since that one sandwich was the only thing he got in himself despite the wistful looks he was repeatedly throwing at a column of greasy pancakes and jar of Nutella laid next to him.

Q truly looked forward to seeing his faces at dinner; the idea of that made him snicker. James raised an eyebrow at him. Q cocked his head in Mycroft’s direction, gazing at him. James’ eyes jumped at him, and he noticed the obvious way he was hypnotising the pancakes. He smiled faintly at him too—he understood.

They weren’t the only ones to observe the comical situation. Harry Hart saw it too when he came to take a buttered toast. “Feel free to take one. They weren’t made to be looked at,” he said to him.

“Sherlock is going to tease me about it forever if I do,” he whispered back, but Sherlock’s attentive senses couldn’t miss it anyway. “I shouldn’t eat such caloric dishes.”

“Your brother may say anything he pleases, Mr Holmes, and none of it will matter. I have had plenty of experience with that.”

Harry got ahold of the intended slice of toast and retired to his place next to Eggsy. His advice worked: Mycroft helped himself to two pancakes and spread them with a few centimetres worth of Nutella. He added some raspberry Hartley’s atop it.

Sherlock, oddly enough, made no comments; he merely eyed the stuffed roll with some level of disapproval. Mother was nothing but shining. She was glad everyone was eating properly, chasing off the hunger and emaciation they were, according to her, suffering with.

“You’ve Nutella in the corner of your mouth, Mycroft,” was the only thing Sherlock said eventually.

 

The 18 hungry mouths ate all the food except for three pancakes and most of the cornflakes. The cooks were satisfied. R ceased to be so angry with Eggsy in the end.

John, Mary, and Eve insisted on doing the dishes. Mrs Holmes protested against it. She came up with arguments that it was their house and their dishes, therefore, they should be the ones doing them. The guests were adamant on helping her, though. They argued that helping her with basic chores was the least they could do in exchange for such a nice welcome and delicious food.

Alec was playing with Rosie. Mary has been his friend since the first day at SIS, and the Russian wasn’t there when 005 had been killed. She had no reason to hate _him_. She had no reason not to entrust her daughter to him. Besides, the girl seemed to have liked him, God knows why. Perhaps because he occasionally stole a biscuit or sugar cane from the Christmas tree just for her.

No one said anything against it until he started taking rum or brandy shortbread.

When they put the furnishings in the original state, the group moved to the tree to unpack the second round of presents. Q and James gave away their boxes, and received a small pile of their own, consisting of nine presents for Q and six for James. One from Q, one from Q’s parents, and four from his colleagues.

Q was unduly astonished by the number. He hasn’t got as many Christmas presents since he was a child. There was one from his parents, one from Sherlock and Irene, another from Mycroft, two from James, and four from MI6 as well, one of which being from 009 and Danny.

Q persisted on being the last to unwrap them. He wanted to see everyone’s faces while unwrapping theirs. For him, that was the best part of the entire tradition.

Q usually gave self-made technical amenities or, on the other hand, cheap trinkets from Poundland and sweets. The choice depended on the person he was presenting with a gift, obviously, and their status of decent and orderly behaviour in the past months. James’ presents were always more expensive and thought-through: souvenirs from exotic destinations he had visited on missions, and alike objects.

One might suppose James Bond would give away some meaningless, jokey gifts or kitsch he’d wish to get rid of. That assumption would, however, be incorrect. He gave gifts for people he cared about his best. He was collecting random items that had punched him in the face in small shops all over the globe all year long and kept them to give them away on birthdays and Christmas. He still had some hidden at the back of his closet.

He also received similar things, barring Alec’s gift. His best friend gave him a bottle of Russian vodka and a naughty greeting card that he, naturally, had to show to everyone and give it a proper laugh.

 

It was Q’s turn, then. He began with friends and family’s presents, keeping James’ for last. As he anticipated, there was a cardigan, two rare, limited-edition mugs, some things with cats on them, including a cat toy, and a 5TB storage drive. That couldn’t be from anyone else but R. He had frequently complained to her about the lack of capacity on his other three drives.

He thanked Christina for it, adding he had really needed it, and that it was the best kind of present he could have got. He put it aside and unwrapped the penultimate present. It was a golden, paw-waving Chinese cat statuette.

James knew Q hated them; he was teasing him with it. Still, he will put it on his desk in the lab. It was a present from James. He’d never dispose of such precious objects. He didn’t have the heart. It was the same old story as with James and old M’s bulldog.

When a glint of a golden ear peeped out from the red wrapping paper, Q burst out with laughter. A second later, he threw a contemptuous and slightly reproachful glance at James.

“Really, James? Is this abomination a way of repaying me for all the equipment I haven’t given to you? _What_ have I ever done to you?”

Five answers at least crossed his mind, but he didn’t want to admit that, neither aloud nor to himself.

“Come on, Q, show at least some delight! I’ve dragged it all the way from Beijing,” James replied. His eyes emitted a faux disgruntled, imploring flashes. Then a smile crossed his face. “But I promise the other present will certainly take the wind out of your sails.”

“Don’t get your hopes up yet, James. If it is another one of your—”

“Just unpack it,” James cut him off. Q lay the cat down, still unwrapped, and lifted the last, small box lying under the tree.

The brand new sparkles of excitement and impatience in James’ eyes gave him away. He was up to something. He gave him his best siren glance, as though he hadn’t got him years ago.

The size and shape of the box didn’t tell Q anything about its contents, even after shaking it gently. James thought how lucky he was that had Q saved this particular one for last.

Q tore the paper apart. Underneath it indeed was a box: dark blue, velvety, with round corners. His heart skipped a beat. There was only one sort of thing you’d put in such case.

He crumpled the paper and dropped it on the ground. He took the box in both hands. He held his breath at it. He slowly lifted the lid. His eyes fluttered when he saw the simple silver band resting on the tiny pillow. He did not even have time to ask his brain whether it was silver or white gold.

It shocked him. He took his eyes off the jewel, and caught himself gaping. He absorbed the amazed faces of his friends and family. Some of them covered their mouths with the palms of their hands to stop themselves from squealing.

James was suddenly on one knee. “I know this,” he took the ring box from Q’s hands, “is hard to think about in the shadow of recent events—but what had happened made me realise that it’s what I truly want—no, need.” Q still had not found any sensible thoughts in his disarranged brain. “You are my sun and stars; you are my light in the darkness; you are all that I’ve needed; you gave me everything, and I want to give you all because this might be my last day. So, Andrew… Sherrinford Holmes, will you marry me?”

“James—what—this—yes!” Q stammered out. He did not waver over the answer for a second. “Yes, James Bond, I will marry you.”

He held out his left hand and let James slide the band on his ring finger. It fit perfectly.

Everyone stopped what they were intending to do and clapped their hands loudly. Q would swear someone gave them a wolf-whistle, too. James slowly rose to his feet. Q couldn’t hold himself back, and grabbed the lapels of his jacket to pull him in for a kiss. He held him close by.

His lips hovered over James’ ear. He whispered, “Kudos for the _Thrones_ reference.” James laughed.

Q stole another glance at the ring sitting neatly on his finger. And then he understood—James had been planning this all along. He had been the reason for Mother’s unforeseen hospitality. He had also considered proposing to him in front of his entire family and twelve other people an act, a proof, of sincerity, Q realised.

A proof Q did not need. They were serious about their relationship; they meant every each of those words they’d said to the last syllable. He loved James, and James loved him. That was enough. He would have said yes had he asked him on the sofa, in front of their cats. 

Worry about the changes that might come with the engagement had no place on his mind. Their life was complicated and dangerous enough before; nothing but Q’s surname could change so drastically. And Mallory had no power over any of their decisions, however against it he might be.

His parents were congratulating them, kissing their cheeks, and shaking their hands eagerly. They were, to his surprise, jubilant. They were glad their youngest son had finally decided to settle down. Mentioning they wished for Mycroft to follow his and Sherlock’s example was needless.

Soon, the congratulations were over, and Q and James could get a rest and let the unfamiliar state of matters soak up. Q pressed one more kiss to James’ lips. Together, they sat in an armchair with a glass of eggnog. If being squashed in it with another person hurt James, he said nothing.

Q breathed in the smell of the drink, the smell of his partner—no, _fiancé_ —the smell of Christmas, the smell of home. He kept coming back to the ring. And there was one thing he had not come back for the entirety of a quarter of an hour: Second V-Day. He had forgotten. For a moment, he had forgotten.

 

Yesterday, he said this Christmas was the worst Christmas of his life. Now, he was actually and seriously reconsidering the awfulness factor of the holidays. The proposal could in no way prevail the massacre and depression, but it could balance the scales, for this was probably the happiest moment of his life. One of those he will cherish forever.

Either way, this Christmas was spectacular. He, and every soul walking this earth, will never let it slip from the memory, but he hoped it will be because of the good and not the bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've actually intended to go on and give it a smuttier ending—but then my mother, a great beta she is, stepped in and said 'give it a super duper happy ending and finish it right there'. That's what I did, and it's just perfect. Maybe a bit cliché, but who cares. I know we all love a good fluff :) 
> 
> I borrowed the proposal speech lines from Asking Alexandria, cos I have no inspiration, sigh. And I just love their songs.


	16. Epilogue

Q liked to tell himself everything was okay and he was okay. He was not.

He still had nightmares about Second V-Day—the orders he had given, the things he had seen, the horror of nearly having lost James. It wouldn’t disappear. It wouldn’t go away. Everything hurt, and the pain was infuriating. Guilt was eating him from the inside. No pills could help.

To chase it away at least momentarily, he indulged himself with work anytime he could. He barely ate, barely slept. He rarely left his underground office. James, and Eve, too, worried about him. They had every reason to; he knew. He _needed_ help, the constant refusals notwithstanding.

The Second V-Day had brought quanta of pain upon _everyone_ but shot Q right in the chest. He had been in the thick of it. The good the ring—he glanced at it briefly—had carried did _not_ balance the scales.

“Q!” There was someone in the lab, and have been for long, by the sounds of their voice.

The Quartermaster flinched. He quickly snatched a wooden ruler lying on his desk and turned around, aiming it in the intruder’s direction.

“Easy, Q, it’s just me!” shouted Eve Moneypenny. She waved a stash of papers in her hand. “I’ve brought budget reports.”

That was almost as terrible as the idea of an attack.

Q lowered the ruler. He put it back where it belonged. His eyes were burning with fatigue, so he rubbed them with the backs of his hands.

“Give them to me,” he said resignedly.

Clearly, he sounded as miserable as he looked, because Eve narrowed her eyes. “Are you alright, Q?”

He was not, not really. _To lie or not to lie?_ Eve was his friends, best mate, one could say. He figured he owed her the truth.

“Not really.” It was months, but not really.

Eve ran to his desk in her clopping stilettos. She walked round it and put a comforting arm on his shoulder. “Have you even eaten anything?”

“Lunch,” Q answered, “yesterday.”

“Oh my _God_ , Q! Let me get you something RIGHT NOW.”

“No, no; no need, Eve,” protested Q. His stomach ceased to show any signs of hunger a while ago. “I must work.”

She looked him in the eye with genuine care. “What you _must_ , Q, is get help.”

“You mean what, a psychologist? Therapist?” That was ridiculous. But everyone around him has been talking about therapy. “Are you recommending someone?”

“What if that is precisely what I’m doing, Q? Because this situation is serious. This is what an onset of PTSD looks like. I’ve worked in the field. I’ve seen it with operatives.” Q gave her a sceptical glance. “Do you remember special agent Myles?” Q nodded. Everyone knew special agent Myles. “Then you must know his husband is a psychiatrist. A good one, from what I hear. He has an office in Mayfair. Robert Myles, Google him.” Q still was not convinced. “Just consider it,” Eve urged.

“Alright, alright,” he gave in. “I will. But now I must work; the laser mascara will not make itself.”

 

* * *

 

He knocked on the door. He checked the time on his watch; he was right on time.

Was it a right decision? Going back to therapy after so many years of being stable made him squirm. He did not feel ready to sit in an armchair and talk about his life in front of a stranger. The man may have been an agent’s husband, but still.

The door swung open. A tall, blond man in a grey three-piece suit stood behind it. He was holding the door with one hand, and invited Q in with the other. His smile was mysterious and gaze stern.

“Mr Holmes,” he said softly, with a hint of a foreign accent. Nothern Europe, maybe? “Please, come in.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hereby pronounce this monster of a fic complete and edited.
> 
> Anyway, I thank you all for reading and kudos-ing. Please, give me reviews: positive, critical, anything. Tell me what you think!
> 
> Do you want to read more of this 'verse? Do you want me to write their wedding and let this company gather once more? Do you? Hah, even if you don't, I'm writing a sequel anyway. Not now, for I have four other WIPs to work on, but soon. 
> 
> And do you know who the psychiatrist is? Do you know who agent Myles is? I think you do :)
> 
> *fanfares* It's Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham! They're coming to the party! Haha! But don't worry, even if you're not in that fandom, I think you still can continue reading it. :) See ya later, then :)


End file.
